Partner 'Ecstatic' About Extreme Networks' Brocade Buy Finalizing

**Editor’s Note: Please click here for a recap of the biggest channel-impacting merger and acquisition news from August.**

Extreme Networks has completed its $55 million acquisition of Brocade Communications Systems’ data center networking business.

Extreme said Brocade’s portfolio provides it with an “industry leading data center solution used by enterprises and service providers,” supports its growth strategy, and secures its position as a “top player in the enterprise networking market.” This is the third in a series of acquisitions announced by Extreme in the last year, including its acquisition of Zebra Technologies‘ WLAN business and Avaya’s networking business.

Extreme Networks’ Ed Meyercord

“Through a series of synergistic acquisitions, Extreme is now a top player in the enterprise networking industry and expects to generate over $1 billion in annual revenues,” said Ed Meyercord, Extreme’s president and CEO. “Today’s announcement is not only a significant milestone for our growth strategy, but it also allows us to assist more customers around the globe with end-to-end software-driven solutions to drive their digital transformation initiatives.”

With the close of this acquisition, Extreme acquires customer relationships, personnel and technology assets from Brocade, including the SLX, VDX, MLX, CES, CER, Workflow Composer, automation suites and other data center-related products.

Following the Brocade acquisition, Extreme now has 30,000 active customers, 3,000 employees and 6,000 partners.

Solid IT Networks, an Extreme partner, has grown into one of the major providers of secure-network sales and support in the South Central United States.

“As a partner of Extreme for over a decade, we’re ecstatic about the completed acquisition of Brocade’s data center business,” said JDee Flamming, Solid IT’s vice president. “It has been the primary data-center solution we have promoted for the last 10 years beginning when they were known as Foundry Networks. Now that Extreme has added this remarkable data-center technology to [its] product portfolio, we’re able to provide our customers a complete data center to edge wired and wireless solution through a single networking manufacturer. This helps us grow our customer base by offering a full solution that can simplify their lives operationally and meets all of their networking needs. Also with Extreme now the third-largest enterprise networking company in the market, it gives us a leg up in winning business and increasing our revenue streams.”