Avaya sells networking business to Extreme Networks for $100 m

Avaya, the US-headquartered communications solutions provider, on Friday confirmed that it has exited the networking business by selling it to Extreme Networks for around $100 million. Avaya has a sizeable presence in India.

In an interaction with DH, Avaya Networking SVP and GM Marc Randall said the Avaya networking business will become part of a company exclusively focused on networking and address the needs of the company’s networking customers.

“By combining Avaya Networking’s innovative products and solutions with Extreme’s industry leading portfolio, we will enable customers to compete in new ways with more advanced and competitive solutions,” said Randall.

Sources confirmed the successful bidding for Avaya’s networking business in a deal set to be worth around $100m (£77.5m), after being named the preferred bidder in March this year.

Randall also said the company will work through the integration planning with Extreme Networks and it will be business as usual for the company across the globe. “We will ensure our customers benefit from the complementary capabilities of the Avaya and the Extreme portfolio of products and services,” he said.

Avaya, which was reeling under huge debt, filed for bankruptcy protection in January this year under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Avaya has a sizeable presence in India with over 30% of the company's products and solutions development done out of R&D centres in Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad.

Besides having 2,200 employees in India, the company has more than 400 partners. Talking to DH, Avaya India and SAARC Managing Director Vishal Agrawal said the company is focussed on large and medium enterprises which are looking at next level of customer experience.

“India is one of the top 10 revenue generating zones for the company. Lots of back office operations are being done in India. We are expecting a formal instruction from our headquarters on the acquisition of our network business,” he said.

Extreme Networks recently acquired Brocade Communications Systems' data centre, switching, routing, and analytics business for $55m. Extreme expects the Avaya and Brocade deals will help it to push the company’s revenues to over $1 billion for fiscal year 2018 which begins July 1 and take on the competition from Cisco.