Extreme wants the customers. They'll only keep the technology long enough to placate the fears of the current Avaya/Nortel install base. Some features may get migrated into XOS (Extreme Operation System), but the Avaya technology lines will die a slow death. My guess is Extreme will want the sales relationships primarily, then customer facing services, then a skeleton crew for R&D which will probably be mostly out of India. The remaining back office staff likely won't even make the jump over. Basically, they will repeat what they did to Enterasys during their 2013 acquisition. Same idea with overlapping product sets. They made their intentions known then that the XOS Summit series was where the R&D was going and the Enterasys lines would get maintenance releases for a few years and then go end of sale. They did keep the Enterasys wireless and software platforms, but that was such a small piece of Enterasys sales. The only difference is they won't delay on the Reductions in Force this time (first big RIF was May 2015 - 18 months after closing). After closing on Avaya's Networking, they will probably let go some core Extreme people to make room (aka keep margins in line) just like they did when the Zebra wireless acquisition closed. Extreme's playbook is fairly easy to see by now...
4 replies (most recent on top)
Eye on the Paul... Roger!
I don't agree with the title much. They would be crazy to let the technology "die". I just don't see that happening. As far as all the other stuff? Been happening for years. Think back when Nortel couldn't spell data. Perception was they only bought Bay to keep Lucent from buying them. Think back before Avaya acquired Nortel. Who was Extreme's biggest reseller? And as the data world turns this certainly won't be the end of it. Both Extreme and Avaya have some very good switches and technology. Hopefully Extreme will capitalize.
Keep your eye on the Paul.
Sadly, this is probably true. It's too difficult and confusing to maintain multiple technologies. That said, there are some compelling advantages to some of Avaya's technology and is is likely this will be incorporated in to XOS over time. Avaya's flavor of SPB would enable Extreme to compete favorably in some segments that their current technology doesn't permit. Given that hardware is basically all the same - or will soon be - they must have something that enables them to compete. This is where Avaya software comes in. On the call yesterday, the CEO acknowledged this. So as the previous poster said, they will keep some development people, some product people, some support people, and probably most of the CSE and sales people, initially because you must have them to maintain the business and customer confidence that the technology won't disappear. But sooner than later - probably after the Brocade acquisition - they will evaluate the ENTIRE team and make the necessary adjustments (meaning, layoff a ton of people).