About Extreme Networks

Extreme Networks, Inc. (Extreme) provides cloud-driven networking solutions, and services and support. Providing a set of comprehensive solutions from the Internet of Things (IoT) edge to the cloud, the company designs, develops, and manufactures wired and wireless network infrastructure equipment, as well as a cloud networking platform and applications portfolio using cloud management, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to deliver network policy, analytics, security, and access controls. Its solutions enable companies to embrace the value of new cloud technology without having to rip and replace existing infrastructures. The company’s cloud-driven technologies provide flexibility and scalability in the deployment, management, and licensing of networks globally. Its global footprint provides service to over 50,000 customers and over 10 million daily end users across the world, including leading business, hospitality, retail, transportation and logistics, education, government, healthcare, manufacturing and service providers. It derives all its revenues from the sale of its networking equipment, software subscriptions, and related maintenance contracts. Strategy The key elements of the company's strategy are to create effortless networking solutions that allow all of it to advance; provide a differentiated end-to-end cloud architecture; offer customers choice: public or private cloud, or on-premises; focus on cloud management subscriptions; offer universal platforms for enterprise class switching and wireless infrastructure; enable a common fabric to simplify and automate the network; provide visibility, control and strategic intelligence from the edge to the data center, across networks and applications; provide high-quality ‘in-house’ customer service and support; extend switching and routing technology leadership; expand Wi-Fi technology leadership; offer a superior quality of experience; expand market penetration by targeting high-growth market segments; leverage and expand multiple distribution channels; and maintain and extend its strategic relationships. Products The company’s products and services categories include the following: Cloud Networking Platform Core to the company’s product portfolio and providing the end-to-end visibility from the access edge to the data center is the company’s cloud platform and cloud management application, ExtremeCloud IQ. ExtremeCloud IQ is a machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) powered, wired and wireless cloud network management solution that offers advanced visibility and control over users, devices, and applications. ExtremeCloud IQ is available in three deployment options (public, private, and on-premises) that support one goal – to provide customers with maximum flexibility, continuous innovation, and consistent user experience. It can be deployed in any major data center environment such, as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Azure, or local private cloud options. The ExtremeCloud IQ application already manages millions of devices in a public, private, and on-premises global cloud deployment. The platform is run from multiple regional data centers, which adds to the resiliency of the platform. Automation, Analytics, and Security Applications The company’s application portfolio delivers additional analytics, security, access control, and management insights both on-premises and in the cloud. ExtremeCloud IQ – Site Engine extends cloud management to non-cloud native and multi-vendor devices to provide one dashboard view of entire network that can be managed in the cloud or on-premises. ExtremeCloud IQ – Site Engine provides task automation, access control, granular visibility with real-time analytics and multi-vendor device management. ExtremeCloud IQ Essentials provides four key applications - wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS), location services, Internet of Things (IoT), and guest management - for ExtremeCloud IQ Pilot license customers at no added cost, enabling organizations to take advantage of an all-in-one platform for wired and wireless management, business insights, location tracking, wireless security, seamless IoT onboarding and guest access, and guest access through a single user interface. Wireless LAN Access Points (APs) The company’s wireless AP portfolio includes both indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi 6 and prior generation APs. ExtremeWireless delivers an exceptional experience for bring your own device (BYOD) and mobile users wherever they may roam. Included in that portfolio are the company’s custom stadium and large venue Wi-Fi 6 outdoor APs, which, when combined with ExtremeAnalytics, are the basis of the company’s selection as the Official Wi-Fi & Analytics Provider for the National Football League (NFL) and the Major League Baseball (MLB). In addition to powering large venues and stadiums, the company’s Extreme APs also deliver flexible and scalable options for distributed environments for major companies globally. Its APs allow its customers to purchase unified hardware, starting with its Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) AP portfolio, and choose the software mode option for the optimal deployment architecture in their environments. The company’s premier wireless security solution, ExtremeAirDefense delivers intrusion detection and prevention capabilities across the wireless portfolio. The company also introduced the first WIPS solution to incorporate support for Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) visibility and intrusion protection. This includes device location support and change detection, rogue BLE Beacon detection and unsanctioned BLE device detection. Wired for Edge, Campus, and Data Center The company’s switching portfolio includes products designed to make every connection effortless by enabling the deployment of high-speed performance at scale for access, high-density, campus, core, and data center environments. Within the ExtremeSwitching portfolio are Access Edge products offering connection speeds ranging from 100 Megabytes per second (Mbps) to 25 Gigabytes per second (Gbps), including edge multi-rate 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps capabilities. These switches provide various physical presentations (copper and fiber) along with options to deliver traditional Ethernet or convergence-friendly Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), including high-power universal POE, including 90W power to support new classes of Ethernet-powered devices. These switching products, combined with the company’s fabric capability, deliver automation and hyper-segmentation, as well as features, performance, and reliability required by its customers to deploy, operate and manage converged infrastructure, along with the ability to harden the perimeter of the network infrastructure. The company’s aggregation/core switches are designed to address the demanding needs of aggregation, top-of-rack, and campus core environments. Delivering 10G, 25G, 40G, 50G, and 100G connectivity with maximum throughput and reliability, these switches provide flexible Ethernet connectivity over a range of interface types and speeds and are available in both fixed and modular configurations. These switching platforms, in conjunction with the company’s advanced operating systems and centralized management software, provide the density, performance, and reliability required to serve in a range of environments, especially where application demands and uptime expectations are mission critical. The company’s campus switch portfolio also includes next-generation, low-profile, high-density Ethernet switches that empower the creation of versatile always-on campus solutions that are fabric-enabled and 25 to 100 gigabit-ready. The technologies supported by these platforms can also leverage automated network attachment to reduce operational burden and time-to-service. The company’s data center switches and routers provide high levels of reliability and throughput - specifically designed to address the exacting demands of high-performance enterprise and cloud data centers. These products are available in both fixed and modular chassis configurations and include a set of advanced features, such as redundant management and fabric modules, hot-swappable line cards on its chassis-based platforms, as well as multi-speed stacking of up to 100G and flexible 10/25/40/50/100G port options on its fixed-form platforms, which makes these switches suited for enterprise data center environments. Both platform types also provide redundant power supplies and fan trays to ensure high hardware availability. These switches also provide key feature extensions for data centers through technologies that include Virtual Extensible local area network (LAN), MPLS/VPLS, and Shortest Path Bridging capabilities. The company’s integrated Extreme Fabric Automation simplifies and adds scalability to even the highest performance environments. In addition to these capabilities, the company’s data center switches offer traffic optimization enabling virtual machine mobility via Layer 3 Data Center Interconnect. Its architecture delivers tens of millions of flows for deep visibility and control over users, services, and applications to meet the analytic and policy demands of business applications. SD-WAN ExtremeCloud software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) is a software-defined wide area networks solution offered as an all-inclusive subscription, which includes hardware, the cloud-based SD-WAN service, support and maintenance, and customer success support. This solution detects and optimizes applications automatically and can apply performance-based dynamic WAN selection for quality and reliability. Included also are security options, such as a built-in zone-based firewall, EdgeSentry (in partnership with Check Point) for cloud-based firewall as a service and other advanced security capabilities, and integration with Secure Web Gateway partners, such as Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and Symantec. Cloud Native Platforms and Applications for Service Providers 5G is the first generation of cellular technologies built on cloud-native principles, and traditional network visibility tools cannot be adapted for future use cases, such as autonomous vehicles or industrial IoT. Because many 5G use cases are undefined, service providers need a composable solution that provides visibility into distributed environments and is flexible enough to be adjusted for specific purposes as they arise without requiring expensive, time-consuming infrastructure upgrades. The company has introduced the 9000 series switches and related software, featuring the Extreme 9920 intelligent network visibility platform built with cloud-native design principles and a composable data pipeline to provide scalable traffic aggregation, packet filtering, replication, and advanced network packet processing for analytics tools in distributed network environments. The Extreme Visibility Manager has an intuitive graphical user interface to establish new rule sets and commands for all of the company’s visibility devices. It provides full visibility into every aspect of the network, from a highly geographically dispersed environment with regions and zones to the services running on the system. Customer Service and Support The company’s customers seek high reliability and maximum uptime for their networks. To that extent, it provides the following service offerings: Support services for End-users, Resellers and Distributors: The company meets the service requirements of its customers and channel partners through its Technical Assistance Centers (TACs), located in Morrisville, North Carolina; Salem, New Hampshire; Aurora, Illinois; San Jose, California; Reading, United Kingdom; Penang, Malaysia; Brno, Czech Republic; Bangalore; Chennai, India; Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan. Its TAC engineers and technicians assist in diagnosing and troubleshooting technical issues regarding customer networks. Development engineers work with the TACs to resolve product functionality issues specific to each customer. Premier Services: Premier Support is a post-sale support service that assists customers in managing their Extreme Networks products and network. All resources and deliverables are designed to manage day-to-day technical needs, provide analysis and recommendations, while building customer relationships, all focused at the network level. Professional Services: The company provides consultative services to improve customer productivity in all the phases of the network lifecycle – planning, design, implementation, operations and optimization management. Its network architects develop and execute customized software and service-led networking solutions for deployment plans to meet individualized network strategies. These activities may include the management and coordination of the design and network configuration, resource planning, staging, logistics, migration and deployment. The company also provides customized training and operational practices manuals to assist customers in the transition and sustenance of their networks. Education: The company offers classes covering a range of topics, such as installation, configuration, operation, management and optimization – providing customers with the necessary knowledge and experience to deploy and manage its products in various networking environments. Classes may be scheduled and available at numerous locations worldwide. The company delivers training using its staff, on-line training classes and authorized training partners. In addition, the company makes much of its training materials accessible free-of-charge on its internet site for customers and partners to use in self-education. Sales, Marketing and Distribution The company conducts its sales and marketing activities on a worldwide basis through a channel that utilizes distributors, resellers and its field sales organization. It has domestic sales offices located in eight states within the United States and international sales offices located in 28 countries. The company sells its products primarily through an ecosystem of channel partners who combine its infinite enterprise vision and product portfolio, including cloud-driven applications, wired, wireless, management and analytics software products with their vertical specific offerings to create compelling information technology solutions for end-user customers. The company utilizes its field sales organization to support its channel partners and to sell directly to certain end-user customers, including some large enterprise and service provider global accounts. The details of the company’s sales and distribution channels are as follows: Alliance, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and Strategic Relationships: The company has active alliance, OEM and strategic relationships with Broadcom, Barco NV, Ericsson Enterprise AB, Lenovo, Verizon, National Football League (NFL), the Major League Baseball (MLB), VMware and Nutanix, as well as other global industry technology leaders in which its products are qualified to be included into an overall solution or reference architecture. These tested and validated solutions are then marketed and sold by the alliance, OEM or strategic partners into their specific verticals, market segments and customers as turnkey offerings. Distributors: The company has established several key relationships with leading distributors in the electronics and computer networking industries. Each of its distributors primarily resells its products to resellers. The distributors enhance its ability to sell and provide support to resellers who may benefit from the broad service and product fulfillment capabilities offered by these distributors. The company maintains distribution agreements with its largest distributors, Westcon Group Inc., TD Synnex Corporation and Jenne Inc. on substantially the same material terms as it generally enters into with each of its distribution partners. Resellers: The company relies on many resellers worldwide that sell directly to the end-user customer. Its resellers include regional networking system resellers, resellers who focus on specific vertical markets, value added resellers, network integrators and wholesale resellers. The company provides training and support to its resellers and its resellers provide the first level of contact to end-users of its products. The company’s relationships with resellers are on a non-exclusive basis. Its resellers are not given rights to return inventory and do not automatically participate in any cooperative marketing programs. Field Sales: The company’s field sales organization is trained to sell solutions, support and develop leads for its resellers and to establish and maintain key accounts and strategic end-user customers. To support these objectives, the company’s field sales force: Assists end-user customers in finding solutions to complex network system and architecture problems; Differentiates the features and capabilities of the company’s products from competitive offerings; Continually monitors and understands the evolving networking needs of enterprise and service provider customers; Promotes the company’s products and ensures direct contact with customers; and Assists the company’s resellers to drive business opportunities to closure. International Sales The company has direct sales to end-user customers, including large global accounts. The primary markets for sales outside of the United States are countries in Europe and Asia, as well as Canada, Mexico, Central America and South America. The company operates in one segment, the development and marketing of network infrastructure equipment and related software. Suppliers The company relies upon third-party contract manufactures and original design manufacturers (ODM), such as Alpha Networks, Lite-On Technology Corporation, Foxconn, Quanta, Senao Networks, Sercomm Corporation and Wistron NeWeb Corporation to manufacture, support and ship its products, and therefore are exposed to risks associated with their businesses, financial condition, geographies and geopolitical conflict in which they operate. Seasonality Like many of the company’s competitors, it historically has experienced seasonal fluctuations in customer spending patterns, which generally adversely affect its first and third fiscal quarters (year ended June 2022). This pattern should not be relied upon or be considered indicative of its future performance, as it has varied in the past. Intellectual Property As of June 30, 2022, the company had 744 issued patents in the United States and 472 patents outside of the United States. The expiration dates of its issued patents in the United States range from 2022 to 2040. The company had 24 registered trademarks in the United States and 217 registered trademarks outside of the United States. In addition, the company provides its software products to end-user customers primarily under ‘clickwrap’ license agreements. Environmental Matters The company maintains compliance with various regulations related to the environment, including the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulations adopted by the European Union. History Extreme Networks, Inc. was founded in 1996. The company was incorporated in California in 1996 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1999.