Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) appears poised to end the Scott Kriens era on a sunny note, as the company turned in solid second-quarter numbers and an upbeat third-quarter forecast.

Of course, the big news is Juniper's new CEO, Kevin Johnson, who will join in September from Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), as announced this morning. He'll be on Juniper's board as well. (See Kriens Steps Aside as Juniper CEO.)

Based on Kriens's comments during today's earnings call, it sounds as if Juniper was scouting for senior executives but wasn't necessarily aiming for a new CEO right away.

"There was no real moment of realization in this -- the goal was to hire the best executive we could find," Kriens said. That executive might not have been CEO caliber, "in which case we would have hired someone into a lesser role and it would have been a development exercise."

For its second quarter, which ended June 30, Juniper reported revenues of $879 million and net income of $120.4 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with first-quarter revenues of $822.9 million and net income of $110.4 million, or 20 cents per share.

For its second quarter a year ago, Juniper reported revenues of $664.9 million and net income of $86.2 million, or 15 cents per share.

Juniper's pro forma net income of 28 cents per share beat analyst estimates by a penny, according to Reuters Research .

Juniper's third-quarter forecast is a bit of a mixed blessing. It's saying revenues should be $925 million to $935 million -- beating the analyst forecast of $888 million -- but earnings per share will be on target with previous expecations, at 29 or 30 cents per share, non-GAAP.

Before Kriens gave that forecast, Juniper shares were trading up 54 cents (2.4%) at $23.11 after-hours.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading