Extreme Networks Closes on Avaya Networking Business Deal

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Extreme Networks has completed its acquisition of Avaya’s networking business for about $100 million.

Avaya filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. It entered into an asset purchase agreement with Extreme for the networking business in a section 363 sale under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The final agreement was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Extreme Networks’ Gordon Mackintosh

Gordon Mackintosh, Extreme’s senior director of worldwide partner organization, tells Channel Partners the acquisition fits into his company’s growth strategy by establishing it as the third-largest competitor in the enterprise space.

“This also contributes to Extreme’s move to become the only company in the world exclusively focused on delivering the highest quality end-to-end, wired and wireless enterprise IP networking,” he said. “As a channel-centric organization, partners are key to Extreme’s growth and the channel will help broaden our customer base into new and existing verticals (i.e. education, health care and government) and deliver leading networking technology that will address key customer concerns.”

Next steps include integrating Avaya’s fabric technology into Extreme’s networking offerings, which is “complementary to our existing end-to-end portfolio and brings with it automation, simplicity and security to infrastructure environments,” Mackintosh said.

“We are committed to providing new and existing partners with opportunities that drive growth and profitability for their business,” he said. “In an effort to ensure business continuity during this transition period, Extreme is honoring the existing Avaya Partner Program through October 2017. In October at our annual Partner Conference, we will launch a unified partner program that encompasses new and existing Extreme partners.”

Extreme Networks’ Ed Meyercord

Extreme expects to generate more than $200 million in annualized revenue from the acquired networking assets.

“This is an exciting day for Extreme and a strategic milestone for our company that further enables us to deliver the end-to-end networking solutions and services enterprise customers across our target vertical markets need to run their businesses,” said Ed Meyercord, Extreme’s president and CEO. “In addition to acquiring networking assets that complement and strengthen our capabilities, we are expanding our bench of talented and experienced employees, partners and networking customers. We’ve already seen great participation from new and existing partners and customers during our recent closing roadmap webinar, which is a key indicator of the mutual excitement for this deal.”

Extreme also is buying Brocade’s data-center networking unit, which is expected to close after Broadcom’s acquisition of Brocade.

“As I’ve worked with the leadership teams of both companies throughout this process, it’s been clear this is the right move for all of us — one that will accelerate growth for both Extreme Networks and Avaya,” said Kevin Kennedy, Avaya’s president and CEO. “We believe the addition of our complementary … wired, WLAN and fabric technology will not only strengthen Extreme Networks’ competitive position but also create strategic opportunities for customers and partners. We look forward to continuing Avaya’s focus on growth within our core, industry-leading unified communications and contact-center solutions.”