Extreme Networks CEO: We Will Be ‘The Fastest-Growing’ Networking Vendor In 2025

‘There’s never been a greater opportunity to go in and take share from Cisco accounts,’ one partner tells CRN about the optimism from the networking specialist’s CEO heading into 2025.

Small but mighty networking specialist Extreme Networks is well-positioned to capitalize on the current networking industry that’s being disrupted by massive M&A shakeups, according to Extreme President and CEO Ed Meyercord.

“Of the traditional networking companies, we’ll be the fastest growing. We’ll be taking share. Our outlook is double-digit growth. You’ll see that in March, you’ll see it in June. With everything behind us, you’ll look at Extreme as the fastest-growing networking [vendor]," Meyercord told CRN in an exclusive interview.

That’s because businesses and channel partners are in the market for another networking option, the CEO said. The top vendor by revenue in the networking space, Cisco Systems, is digesting its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk. The No. 2 and No. 3 players in the market, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, respectively, are slated to come together in a $14 billion deal that is set to close by the end of the year or early 2025.

“With HPE and juniper, when that deal gets done and that closes, that’s really kind of the new starting line for us ... that will create some opportunity for us,” Meyercord said.

[Related: The 10 Hottest Networking Startups Of 2024]

In fact, the CEO said that partners are already noticing that they can make more money with Extreme and come to their customers with a differentiated, end-to-end offering that stands out from an offering that a competing partner might be pitching from one of the large incumbent vendors.

Some of Extreme’s latest large customer wins are coming at the expense of Cisco, he said. One such customer is Korean Airlines, which was a Cisco customer for 30 years before just recently making the switch to Extreme, according to Meyercord.

“In effect, we have become a safe haven for customers and partners and have the highest quality, high reliability, highly differentiated, easier to use and deploy solution as an alternative, and people will look for an alternative,” Meyercord said.

Covington, Ky.-based MSP StepCG, an Extreme partner, over the past year has been involved in about five large Cisco rip-and-replace deals with Extreme winning the business. One such deal was with Norwegian Cruise Line, according to Ed Walton, StepCG’s CEO.

StepCG differentiates itself by focusing on building hybrid networks for its customers, which includes a carrier-grade network with wired, wireless and cellular connectivity. Extreme’s fabric and one-cloud approach to secure networking stand out in the market, Walton said.

The last few years of supply chain issues as a result of the pandemic helped to shine a light on other networking vendors that were not as heavily impacted by gear shortages, which also helped to buoy Extreme into a strong position, Walton said.

“In that time, [customers] were able to see the benefits of things like the Extreme fabric and the whole portfolio, including campus edge and ExtremeCloud IQ. That led to quite a few net-new logo opportunities for Extreme,” he said.

Walton said that StepCG is seeing a significant amount of network refreshes coming up in the health-care segment in particular. One hospital deal that StepCG is working on now happens to be another Cisco displacement with Extreme, he said.

Going into the new year, Meyercord’s optimism is well-placed, Walton said.

“There’s going to be more opportunities in 2025 to tell the Extreme story, and it’s resonating in some new markets that Extreme hasn’t played in before,” he said. “There’s never been a greater opportunity to go in and take share from Cisco accounts.”

'Surprising' Simplicity

Extreme, alongside Cisco, HPE and Juniper Networks, was named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure report. The company goes to market with its “One Network, One Cloud” strategy in the form of its universal platform that combines flexible hardware, security tools and a cloud subscription.

The company in 2024 made generally available its ExtremeCloud Universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) offering that combines network, application and device security all within a single tool. The offering 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.

The “One Network, One Cloud” approach is timely because customers are looking for one, fully integrated solution, Meyercord said.

Extreme’s portfolio is “surprising” new partners and end customers with its fabric, resiliency, micro-segmentation and security capabilities, he said.

"They kind of go from, ‘Can they really do this?’ kind of disbelief to, ‘Oh my gosh, this is real, and wow, this makes something so much easier. Why haven’t I done this before?’ ... They didn’t expect us to run as far as we have. And then we win. That’s a really exciting time for us at Extreme,” he said.

The company is investing heavily in simplicity and creating a seamless user experience because it’s where Extreme has a “huge leg up on the larger competitors,” Meyercord said.

“Right now, we’re involved in more and more larger kinds of opportunities. Historically, you might not have seen Extreme playing there. I think, for the channel, it puts Extreme in a very different profile, and you can present a very unique value proposition that you couldn’t present before, which is higher value proposition, better economics for you, and you’re not competing with 10 other people presenting the exact same thing where the people at the top of the food chain have better economics than you so they can offer a lower price,” he said. “We have a really unique opportunity, I believe, to take share in the marketplace.”