Juniper tapping into device security demand with SMobile buy

Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR) $70 million acquisition of SMobile will allow the vendor to complete its growing mobile security portfolio, augmenting its Junos Pulse network connection software with SMobile’s full suite of smartphone and tablet security and applications.

Those additions will allow Juniper to expand its mobile security business from selling secure network clients to offering operators, enterprises and resellers white-label anti-malware, firewall, anti-theft and identity protection services, said Sanjay Beri, vice president and access and acceleration business unit general manager for Juniper.

“We at Juniper, our goal is to be the leader in mobile security,” Beri said. “A year or two ago 98% of devices had no security clients, but just in the last year there has been a huge increase in [protected] devices.” Not just enterprises are interested in locking down sensitive information on their employee’s phones. Operators have become more interested in offering security features to differentiate themselves from their competitors and to bring in incremental service revenue, Beri said. “If you buy a smartphone from BT today, it automatically comes with security software,” he added.

While mobile security hasn’t been a hugely publicized concern, enterprises have become more attuned to threats as smartphones and tablets become more commonplace among their employees and the number of security threats targeting those devices has risen. Daniel Hoffman, chief technology officer for SMobile, said that surveys of enterprises have found some kind of malicious software on 4% of devices, mostly spyware, representing huge security threats. That number could be even higher for consumer devices. Furthermore, as consumer services become more sophisticated, security solutions from third-party providers such as banks and financial companies become more imperative, Hoffman said.

Within those threats lies a huge potential for operators, Hoffman said. “We can turn that core security platform into a means of increasing average revenue per subscriber,” he said. While an operator like BT may offer security as a basic service like voicemail to distinguish itself from the competition, there are many opportunities to build incremental services on that model. An operator could provide a base level of firewall or anti-virus protection and then sell more advanced solutions for monthly charges.

Anti-theft protection is one option, in which a carrier can lock down and in some cases recover a stolen device using client software. Another consumer service could be parental control functions, which limit what a child can download or browse with his or her device. On the business side, an operator could provide managed device security and policy enforcement services across all of a small business' or enterprise’s phones.

Infonetics estimates mobile security could be a $1 billion market by 2014, potential growth that hasn’t escaped other security specialists. Symantec has launched its own suite of mobile security services for the smartphone, including a version of its Norton Anti-virus that protects against malicious or suspicious apps downloaded from app stores.