Extreme Networks’ most recent earnings release showed considerable momentum that CEO Ed Meyercord told SDxCentral reinforces the mission-critical nature of networking, a nature that has Extreme looking to expand market opportunities upmarket where rivals Cisco and Juniper Networks have typically thrived, and could further bolster Extreme Networks’ own acquisition appetite.

Extreme posted a near-39% increase in total revenues for the second quarter of its 2026 fiscal year, a number that Meyercord said was a combination of both surging sales and the market’s ability to absorb supply chain-related price increases.

Specifically, Meyercord told investors during the earnings call that Extreme had implemented a 7% price increase, and the results were “like a tree falling in the forest, a total non-issue,” a reaction Meyercord said showed the “price inelasticity of networking.”

“If you think about an organization, think about your organization, there's no discussion about whether or not you need a network and that you need a modern network with modern networking tools. This is true for all of our customers. It's kind of a non-negotiable,” Meyercord said during the earnings call. “I'd say our customers are very resilient from a pricing perspective.”

Meyercord furthered this notion to SDxCentral, stating that “even if we have small increases in our prices, customers will bear that because they need to. They need to support critical infrastructure.”

“What customers will do is they'll reprioritize spending. If they have a certain budget, they will have to move something else out, or they’ll just push the network spend out by six months or maybe a year,” Meyercord said of companies that might look to “sweat” current networking assets. “But I would say, usually, that networking pieces is not really that. That's not the nice-to-have, that's the need-to-have because everything relies on network.”

Market dynamics remain dynamic

That ability to support small price increases is also due to market dynamics. Meyercord explained that Extreme is able to manage its price increases under similar moves being made by market heavyweight Cisco.

“Cisco is the largest player in our market. They sort of set a pricing umbrella and we're able to sort of come in under that, and they never let a good component shortage go to waste, so we kind of slide up under that,” Meyercord said.

Meyercord’s claim is somewhat backed by Cisco’s own results. The market heavyweight’s last earnings release showed a robust 15% year-over-year increase in networking-related revenues, which management attributed to a strong campus refresh cycle and – to its refocus – continued strong AI demand. Chuck Robbins explained that the networking growth was spread across “hyperscale infrastructure, enterprise routing, campus switching, wireless industrial IoT, and servers.”

“Within our campus networking portfolio, we are seeing very strong demand for switching, routing, and wireless products, indicating that enterprise customers are investing in the connectivity needed for AI deployments,” Robbins said during the vendor's earnings call.

That competitive dynamic is also playing out at the Juniper Networks-fortified Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Meyercord noted that HPE had always been a lower-priced, lower-margin player in the market as opposed to Juniper Networks, which Meyercord said was more of a direct competitor to Extreme.

“HPE has a lot of margin pressure and they can't afford to lower Juniper prices, they just can't,” Meyercord said.

Despite the claimed pricing inelasticity, Meyercord did counter that “we’re never greedy.”

“We're not overreaching,” Meyercord said. “We work very hard to balance kind of the right mix. Our teams do a good job of that.”

Meyercord provided an example of Extreme’s team being able to source memory chips from an adjacent vertical that had already been qualified to work within Extreme’s systems.

“When you look at what's going on inside of Extreme, we have very nimble, crafty teams. We're very focused on solving for our problem set, which is a lot smaller than the bigger players out there that are solving for a lot more,” Meyercord explained. “And then we're chasing lower volumes, which makes it easier for us to sort of fill what we need.”

Extreme also recently implemented changes to its channel partner program that could help the vendor climb that craftiness upmarket.

“You'll hear us talking about moving up market in terms of the size of the projects and the size of the customers that are making the choice to move to Extreme, and then that also gets picked up in the channel,” Meyercord said, adding that this move is gaining “tailwinds” from channel partner changes at HPE-Juniper and Cisco.

Is Extreme eyeing an acquisition opportunity?

Despite those potential pressures, Extreme remains open for continued expansion. The vendor has been linked to a possible acquisition of CommScope’s Ruckus enterprise networking division, which reports indicate could be valued at up to $1 billion.

Meyercord did not hint one way or another on a potential Ruckus deal beyond noting that “it seems pretty clear that Ruckus is an asset that will trade. I mean, CommScope has sold everything else, so I think people expect that.”

“We’re always going to have a look in terms of the ability to get a deal to make both ends meet, to have a deal construct that works, that can create a win … those things are always challenging to bring to bear,” Meyercord said. “But we don't at this stage … we have nothing to report or anything to say.”

However, Meyercord did add that “we're looking at security, like we're very active looking at things. We're looking at adjacencies, and we always – in most cases we don't do them – but it's always good to gain intelligence and to be in the game in terms of gaining intelligence and understanding what's going on.”