Extreme Networks’ C-Suite: ‘Some Have Lost Their Focus On Networking’

‘Everybody else translates to risk right now. We are, right now, the company in networking. Our vision is clear, our execution is clear. We’re not distracted with an acquisition or something else. That’s translating into a lot of interest from the broader partner space,’ Extreme Networks’ chief product and technology officer tells CRN.

There’s a lot of confusion in the networking vendor space right now, and Extreme Networks is capitalizing on it, according to the networking specialist’s top executives.

“This industry is changing. Some of the [vendors] in the industry have lost their focus on networking. … When you look in the industry, there are certain portfolios that have a question mark around them. Are they going to be around? Are they certain?” Nabil Bukhari, Extreme’s chief product and technology officer, said during the annual Extreme Connect user conference this week.

The top vendor by revenue in the networking space, Cisco Systems, “is a little busy right now” with its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk. The No. 2 and No. 3 players in the market—HPE and Juniper Networks—while brilliant companies, Bukhari said, “have a long road ahead of them in trying to figure out what they want to be.”

That long road, he said, translates to risk. “It’s risk for not only the customers, but risk for partners,” he told CRN.

[Related: Extreme Networks Launches First Wi-Fi 7 AP, Switch Series With Integrated Universal ZTNA]

Extreme Networks is no stranger to M&A, having completed several big deals itself over the years, including Aerohive Networks in 2019 for $210 million and Infovista’s Ipanema SD-WAN business in 2021 for approximately $73 million. Still, industry heavyweight Cisco’s most recent acquisition could be viewed as the company shifting away from its networking business, Extreme Networks President and CEO Ed Meyercord told CRN.

“In closing Splunk, their eyes are moving further and further away from that core business where we’re focused and we’re hearing that from the channel and from customers,” he said.

The big price tag that HPE is paying for Juniper Networks—$14 billion—indicates that costs will have to come out when and if the two companies close the deal and come together, Meyercord said.

“They’ll have to make lots of cuts. They also have to decide on whose partner program survives. What’s the technology portfolio? What’s going to survive? Engineers are going to be fighting over this for years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Extreme Networks is in a strong position, Meyercord said. The company, alongside Cisco, HPE and Juniper Networks, was declared a Leader in the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure report.

“In terms of our position and our focus, we’re getting a lot of good feedback from customers and partners and we’re pretty excited about the next couple years and the dynamic of the competitive landscape,” he said.

Upgrading or changing wireless infrastructure is often a big expense for a customer and the pending acquisition between HPE and Juniper Networks is giving some customers pause, according to one channel partner who requested anonymity.

“We do see some customers that are a little nervous about it and investing in [HPE Aruba] and they are saying, ‘Let’s push that back a year and wait and see,’” the partner executive said.

HPE Aruba and Juniper’s enterprise networking portfolios overlap, and since HPE is buying Juniper in part for its Mist AI engine, customers and partners wonder if HPE will standardize around Juniper’s wireless technology, the executive said.

“So then, what happens to the Aruba portfolio? Will they merge it in and operate it from the Mist cloud? It’s kind of unknown,” the partner executive said.

That “unknown” will leave room for networking competitors to potentially gain market share, the partner executive said.

Extreme Networks under the direction of Meyercord has spent the first half of this year expanding its portfolio and baking security into its offerings as the lines blur between networking and security. Specifically, the company is “maniacally focused” on its “One Network, One Cloud” mantra with its universal platform story that combines flexible hardware, security tools and a cloud subscription, said Bukhari, who also heads the company’s subscription business.

Extreme Networks earlier this year added the AP5020 wireless access point to its portfolio, a cloud-managed Wi-Fi 7 access point that can support bandwidth-intensive applications and an influx of IoT devices in a variety of settings, including high-density environments. The company said it was the first to market with its Wi-Fi 7 AP technology. The AP5020 is now generally available, the company announced at Extreme Connect 2024.

Alongside the new Wi-Fi 7 AP, Extreme at the same time introduced a new cloud-managed 4000 Switch Series that consists of two switches, the 4120 and 4220. The 4000 series is also generally available as of this week, the company said.

First revealed at the end of 2023 and now generally available, ExtremeCloud Universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is an offering that combines network, application and device security all within a single tool. Cloud-based ExtremeCloud Universal ZTNA brings together network access control, access point and switch security to help remove complexity for IT teams when it comes to managing and securing user access across the campus, branch, remote sites and anywhere, according to the Morrisville, N.C.-based company.

An important piece of any networking strategy today is AI. Extreme is approaching generative AI through an ecosystem play, rather than viewing the technology as a product, while baking in a layer of protection and control, Bukhari said.

“If you have data from one source, you’re valuable. If you have data from two sources, you’re 100 times more valuable. And if your data is from three sources, you’re 10,000 times more valuable—it’s exponential,” he said. “It’s a platform, and the more partners that are plugged into it, the more valuable it becomes. We’re spending a lot of money in making that easier and more deployed.”

During this time of flux in the networking space, there’s nothing more certain than the “One Network, One Cloud” message, Bukhari said. The same risk that’s plaguing the networking industry is offering up a unique opportunity for Extreme Networks.

“Everybody else translates to risk right now. We are, right now, the company in networking. Our vision is clear, our execution is clear. We’re not distracted with an acquisition or something else. That’s translating into a lot of interest from the broader partner space,” he said.