In an exclusive interview with Telephony Tuesday, Trapeze Networks Chief Executive Officer Jim Vogt shed some light on its recent addition of Juniper Networks as an equity investor, promising a deeper relationship with Juniper is soon to follow.

Though Juniper currently has no relationship with the wireless LAN equipment vendor beyond the equity investment announced this week (a $30 million D round in which Juniper’s stake is unknown but not the largest), Vogt expects that to change in the next six months or so.

When asked if Trapeze shared a reseller agreement with Juniper--or the kind of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership it shares with another investor, Nortel Networks--Vogt said, “We saw this as a strategic investment in that it would lead to those discussions. None of that is public or finalized, but those are the logical places to go hunting. You’ll see some announcements coming.”

Juniper declined to comment on its investment or its relationship with Trapeze.

The equity investment also distinguishes Juniper’s relationship with Trapeze from its relationships with some of Trapeze’s rivals, like Meru Networks, which announced a sales and marketing partnership with the router vendor a year ago.

“Meru announced that, and the only thing they had was a listing on [Juniper’s] partner page, which I’d love to pay $5000 for, but that’s all you get,” Vogt said. “They’re not working with those guys. That’s nice that you all say you’re working with Juniper, but they put money in my company.”

A Meru spokesman called Vogt’s characterization of its relationship with Juniper inaccurate.

A product partnership with Trapeze could help Juniper penetrate enterprise markets, Vogt said, citing synergies between the two vendors’ wares. “They’ve got good security products, and security is a good tie-in with our mobility technology,” he said. “There are some good fits with their firewall appliances.”

Juniper is only the latest company to invest in Trapeze alongside its own competitors in the equipment vendor space. Nortel Networks, which also participated in this week’s funding round, established an OEM partnership with Trapeze before contributing to the company’s C round of funding last year. Motorola joined in soon after Nortel, contributing $5 million to that C round (a figure Vogt would not expressly confirm but didn’t dispute) and another $5 million to the $30 million round announced this week.

Trapeze’s partnership strategy is designed to give it maximum penetration in the market, Vogt said.

“There’s going to be some conflict, but we don’t favor any one partner,” Vogt said. “We provide mobility solutions and equipment and essentially say, ‘Go compete.’ We say the same thing to our [value-added reseller] channel. Keeping that fair-market view favors Trapeze and extends our coverage in the marketplace.”

Partnering with Trapeze also allows Nortel, Motorola and Juniper to unite against their common enemy: Cisco Systems, which became a direct competitor to Trapeze when it acquired Airespace in early 2005.

“With the amount of [market share] Cisco’s sitting on, the unifying force to every one of these guys [is that their] biggest threat is Cisco,” Vogt said. “In January of ’05, that became my direct threat as well. It got much more competitive, and we saw we had to build strong partners to go after the key gorilla in the market. In enabling these guys to go compete with Cisco, I enable myself to build my company and establish my brand.”

Meanwhile, those partnerships helps Trapeze compete with rival start-ups like Aruba Networks, he said. “[Aruba is] coming directly to large enterprise accounts, and every time they show up in the lobby, they see three of my guys and Cisco. They’re getting squeezed.”

Related Article

Juniper takes stake in Trapeze