Extreme Networks is a networking company based in San Jose, California. Extreme Networks designs, develops, and manufactures wired and wireless network infrastructure equipment and develops the software for network management, policy, analytics, security and access controls.

Extreme Networks was established by co-founders Gordon Stitt, Herb Schneider and Stephen Haddock in 1996 in California, USA, with its first offices located in Cupertino, which later moved to Santa Clara, and later to San Jose. Early investors included Norwest Venture Partners, AVI Capital Management, Trinity Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Gordon Stitt was a co-founder and served as chief executive officer until August 2006, when he retired and became chairman of the board of directors. In October 1996 Extreme Networks acquired Mammoth Technology. In September 1997 Extreme Networks aided in providing the first multi-vendor Gigabit Ethernet backbone at the Networld+Interop trade show. The company’s first product was the Summit1 Gigabit Ethernet switch, a 6 Port Ethernet Layer 3 switching device featuring dual Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) 1000BASE-SX interfaces. This product shipped in 1997 and won the “Best of Show” award at Networld+Interop. The Summit1 was also named the “Best of the Best Grand Winner” for the event. Extreme Networks won Best of Show awards at Networld+Interop five consecutive years, 1997 through 2001 with its Summit PX1 application switch, a Layer 4-7 device.

Extreme Networks introduced its first modular switching products, including the BlackDiamond 6800 and Alpine 3800 switches, in 1999. The initial public offering in April 1999, was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange as ticker “EXTR.” Extreme Networks acquired Optranet in February 2001 and Webstacks in March 2001. Extreme had been investors in both companies, which were purchased for about $73 million and $74 million respectively. Extreme Networks announced its first 10 Gigabit Ethernet product in 2002, available with its modular BlackDiamond 6800 Ethernet Switch.

In April 2013, Charles W. Berger (from ParAccel as it was acquired by Actian) replaced Oscar Rodriguez as CEO. On September 12, 2013, Extreme Networks announced they would acquire Enterasys Networks for about $180 million cash.

On April 19, 2015, Charles W. Berger resigned as CEO, and was replaced by Board Chairman Ed Meyercord.

On May 20, 2015, Extreme Networks announced a restructuring initiative which included plans to cut approximately 285 positions (around 18% of the global workforce, inclusive of contractors.)

On October 28, 2015, Extreme introduced its new “Connect Beyond the Network” tagline. 2016 saw Extreme enter a new market with the introduction of ExtremeCloud.

On October 31, 2016, Extreme Networks announced that it completed the acquisition of Zebra Technologies’ Wireless LAN business for about $55 million.

On March 7, 2017, Extreme Networks announced its intention to acquire Avaya’s networking business in a transaction valued at $100 million. The acquisition officially closed on July 17, 2017. As part of this transaction, Extreme acquired customers, personnel, and technology assets from Avaya. The acquisition strengthens Extreme’s position in the education, healthcare, and government markets with the addition of Avaya’s award-winning Fabric technology for highly secure, simplified access, management, and control. The acquisition also strengthens Extreme’s switching portfolio, including a new family of high-performance modular switches, software tools and IoT technology. Extreme has publicly stated that it expects to “generate over $200 million in additional annualized revenue” from the acquired networking assets from Avaya.

On March 29, 2017, Extreme Networks announced its intention to acquire Brocade’s SRA (Switching, Routing, and Analytics) business from Broadcom for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition officially closed on October 30, 2017, and with it, Extreme acquires customer relationships, personnel, and technology assets from Brocade including the SLX, VDX, MLX, CES, CER, Workflow Composer, Automation Suites, and certain other Data Center related products. Extreme has publicly stated that it anticipates “the transaction will to generate over $230 million in additional annualized revenue from the acquired assets”.

Therefore, through a series of historical and contemporary merger and acquisition activity, Extreme Network claims an industry lineage that includes, at a minimum, the networking-focussed elements of the following companies: Digital, Chantry, Siemens, Cabletron, Enterasys, AirDefense, Symbol, Motorola, Zebra, Wellfleet, SynOptics, Bay Networks, Nortel Networks, Avaya, Vistapointe, StackStorm, Foundry Networks, and Brocade. Extreme Networks itself claims that the combined entity should now be able to generate annual revenues in the region of US $1 billion and to now rank in the top three enterprise networking companies (measured by revenue), and Zeus Kerravala, an industry pundit, has observed that “a bigger, more profitable Extreme will have more money to invest in R&D, fueling further innovation.”