Just some months ago Broadcom has announced a definitive agreement under which it will acquire Brocade merging networking with storage competency to build stronger company. Due to competitive overlaps, Broadcom plans to divest the IP Networking business. Brocade’s intention was to assist Broadcom in finding a buyer that will continue to invest in the strong portfolio that Brocade created.
Now Broadcom and Extreme announced that they have reached a definitive agreement for the purchase of Brocade’s Switching, Routing & Analytics (SRA) business unit, including the VDX, MLX, SLX platform family, Brocade Workflow Composer, and Network Visibility & Analytics product and service portfolios, following the closing of Broadcom’s acquisition of Brocade. We believe that Extreme is a great fit for our SRA business and represents a positive outcome for our partners and customers.
This will remove the overlap between Broadcom and Brocade, making a huge company in Ethernet, FC, FCoE world with strong products (maybe some Brocade’s Ethernet product was good to keept, in order to have a more complete Ethernet portfolio).
On the other side, Extreme Netowrks is the third largest provider of enterprise campus networking solutions. It has approximately 20,000 customers in more than 80 countries, including some of the world’s leading names in hospitality, retail, transportation and logistics, education, government, healthcare and manufacturing. Extreme is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol EXTR, with FY 2016 revenues of more than $500M and nearly 1,700 employees around the world.
Our two companies have similar strategic visions and believe that innovation will increasingly be driven through software capabilities that allow customers to successfully transform their networks for digital business. Both companies are pure-play networking providers, serving the enterprise edge to the data center core. And both companies consistently demonstrate a customer-first culture, placing a high value on excellence in customer and partner support.
Extreme views this acquisition as a strategic expansion in the data center market, and has expressed a firm desire to build on the momentum we have achieved through the recent, complete refresh of our data center networking portfolio. Upon the close of the transaction, we believe our partners and customers will benefit from access to a broader set of products, Extreme’s planned continued investment in our innovative product roadmap, as well as its stated commitment to continued support for our existing product lines.
Broadcom has stated that it expects this acquisition to close within 60 days following the close of Broadcom’s acquisition of Brocade, which is expected to occur in our third fiscal quarter, ending July 29, 2017.
During this interim period, our channel programs and product support across the Brocade portfolio remain in place. Helping to ensure a smooth path forward for partners and customers is a top priority, and we’ll be communicating frequently, to keep you posted as we move through the transition.