Allsopp quits Linksys, joins Juniper

After a relatively short stint, Linksys' Australia and New Zealand regional manager Brian Allsopp has quit the company and joined competing networking player Juniper Networks.

Allsopp was hired last week as Australia and New Zealand director of channels at Juniper.

At the same time, the company has hired former Cisco and Dimension Data executive John Blacaley to head up a new office in Canberra, where Juniper would start to chase government business.

Since landing here four years ago, Juniper has predominantly dealt with service provider customers including Optus, MCI Worldcom, Telstra and Telecom NZ.

The company's US$4 billion acquisition of security vendor Netscreen changed all that, according to Shaun Page, the Melbourne-based regional director Australia and New Zealand at Juniper.

"Here we are today trying to take our share of the pie in the enterprise security and router market. It was clear that we needed to get serious about the way we address channels," he said.

Citing IDC figures, Page claimed Juniper had already secured 42 percent of the high-end router market in Australia.

Juniper has traditionally fulfilled through a network of global "Elite" partners including Ericsson, Siemens, Alcatel and Lucent, Page said.

Netscreen reseller sales are fulfilled through its distribution partner Alstom IT and Channelworx. "Brian's role is spanning all of that -- not just the Netscreen business and the two-tier model but also the channel relationships with global Elites."

Allsopp would have four channel account managers reporting to him. Former Netscreen staffer Sue Stokes would be working under Allsopp while the remaining three are yet to be hired, Page said.

In his role, Allsopp would drive channel marketing and actively recruit new reseller partners for Juniper. Allsopp would be "bedding down the distribution strategy and making sure we're represented in the market's that we're chasing," Page said.

Juniper signed St George Bank recently as its first enterprise customer in Australia. Allsopp was not available for comment at press time.