Juniper's Kevin Johnson Talks about Network Overload, the iPad and More!

When he was president of Microsoft’s Platforms and Services division, Kevin Johnson thought of all kinds of ways to load the Internet up to the gills.

Now, as CEO of networking giant Juniper Networks (JNPR), Johnson spends his time trying to figure out how to stop the Web’s runaway growth–especially with the surge of video and mobile broadband use–from grinding it to a halt.

At a series of recent industry conferences, such as the Mobile World Congress in Spain, Johnson has been trying to noise. One report was even titled, “The Internet Breaking Point: Why Economics Threatens Everything.”

Of course, Johnson also knows this is an opportunity for Juniper.

In any case, with the debut last week of the Apple (AAPL) iPad, a device that–win or lose–is heralding in an era of even heavier media consumption by consumers and businesses, BoomTown thought Johnson would be a good person to reflect on this key trend.

Because if the plumbing gets clogged, the magical abilities of all these kinds of product innovations becomes moot.

It’s an industry concern. Recently, Juniper rival Cisco (CSCO) unveiled a next-generation routing system to speed up Web video.

At Microsoft (MSFT), you might recall, Johnson was key point man in its bid to acquire Yahoo (YHOO), and he moved to Juniper after that effort failed.

Here’s the video of my interview with Kevin Johnson at his offices in Silicon Valley: