Networking News
Extreme Networks CEO: ‘We Are The Little Guy’ That’s Moving Ahead Of Cisco
Gina Narcisi
The networking specialist is smashing records and beating out the ‘largest player’ with its simple licensing structure for its entire cloud networking portfolio that is turning heads of partners, customers and, even, Gartner, Extreme Networks CEO Ed Meyercord tells CRN.

Are you seeing pressure from smaller, cloud networking startups?
No. We are the little guy in our market. And it’s pretty clear we’re taking share. The Gartner report just came out [for Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure] and we moved ahead of that ‘big company,’ [Cisco]. We’re four years in a row in the Leadership quadrant, but we just moved ahead of that big company for the first time. And that’s a big deal—it’s a big deal for people out there. If you’re a channel partner out there noticing: ‘Wait a minute, Extreme just passed the big player and oh, by the way, I’m hearing [about] a lot of issues with the complexity of licensing, and there’s a lot of issues, interoperability between the cloud-based and Catalyst-based [offering]. Maybe I should consider an alternative.’ So, we’re getting these looks and these [turns] at bat. Gartner is always a real exclamation point. I think the old adage: ‘Nobody gets fired for working with the big company,” I think people are realizing that you can be a lot more competitive, and you can win with Extreme Networks. So, why wouldn’t you consider partnering with Extreme and positioning Extreme given the superiority of our solutions for the enterprise and the simplicity of working with us?