Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR)'s fourth quarter will miss analysts' expectations, as the company says there's no indication of customers perking up their buying.

Juniper is expecting revenues of $1.1 billion to $1.13 billion for its fourth quarter, less than analysts' expectations of $1.15 billion as tallied by Thomson.

The company expects fourth-quarter earnings per share of $0.19 to $0.22, compared with the analysts' forecast of $0.24 a share.

Before that pronouncement, Juniper shares were trading down $0.08 (0.4 percent) at $17.49.

Juniper had a couple other bits of news to share.

The executive vice president running Juniper's switch and router business is moving to a new role. Stefan Dyckerhoff wants to become a venture capitalist, so he's no longer going to run Juniper's Platform Systems Division. He'll maintain ties to Juniper as a consultant to CEO Kevin Johnson starting in January; his replacement, Rami Rahim, will head the platform division starting Nov. 1.

Dyckerhoff was on Tuesday's earnings call to explain his job change, but it's not clear whether he's joining a VC firm or doing venture work as part of his staff consultant role at Juniper.

For its third quarter, Juniper reported revenues of $1.12 billion and net income of $16.8 million, compared with year-ago revenues of $1.11 billion and net income of $83.7 million.

Finally, Johnson went out of his way to address software-defined networking (SDN) for a minute. A "productized" implementation of OpenFlow 1.3 will appear next year on Juniper's MX and EX routers and on QFabric, he said.

Why this matters
The economy continues to be tough for equipment vendors, at least from Juniper's point of view. The company bragged about third-quarter revenues having grown compared with the previous quarter and the year-ago quarter, but customers' spending remains tepid -- not necessarily a good sign for the rest of the sector.

As for Dyckerhoff's job change, it marks the latest in a string of executive changes and departures. Last week, CRN reported that Mark Bauhaus and John Morris, the executive vice presidents of operations and strategic alliances, respectively, are both leaving.

They follow two of Juniper's longest tenured executives, RK Anand and Kireeti Kompella.

Johnson's SDN comments were meant to ease concerns about how SDN will affect Juniper's business. That he felt compelled to make those comments, though, seems to indicate that he's getting a lot of questions about SDN. Whether it's the future of the industry or not, SDN has an tight octopus grip on people's brains. (Insert colorful illustration here.)

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— Craig Matsumoto, Managing Editor, Light Reading