Extreme Networks CFO Kevin Rhodes touted the vendor’s ability to attract key executives and sales members from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) during a recent Morgan Stanley investor conference, moves that Rhodes said has positioned the vendor to more directly take advantage of possible discontent by HPE-Juniper Networks customers.

The hires of former HPE and Juniper Networks executives Gos Hein van de Wouw as its new SVP of EMEA sales and Joe Spencer as SVP of global channels and strategic initiatives were specifically called out by Rhodes, who labeled each as a “rock star.” Both van de Wouw and Spencer had served in a similar role at Juniper Networks.

Rhodes also noted this employee migration has included “sales folks” and “others that are coming to join us as well.”

“So we’re getting the benefit of just some good talent there, and naturally those talented individuals also have relationships either with customers or resellers as well, and so there’s a bit of a pull through the halo effect of some of those folks,” Rhodes added.

That insight could help Extreme Networks tip the sales scale in converting disgruntled HPE-Juniper customers.

“What we’re hearing from the HPE-Juniper perspective is just they haven’t really solidified the roadmap yet and that they haven’t really communicated to customers what that roadmap is going to look like. That’s just what we’re hearing,” Rhodes said. “I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but it seems like that’s been the real delay that is kind of causing any sort of concern with customers, and that they don’t want to wait to hear what’s going to happen. They want to know right now what the roadmap looks like.”

That uncertainty has been a long-hanging cloud over HPE’s $14 billion Juniper Networks acquisition, with both analysts and rival executives repeatedly brining up that enterprise concern.

“I think for sure that’s created just a degree of uncertainty and a question of, hey, should I consider if I was previously a vendor or a customer of either of those, now is the time to kind of open up and look at other opportunities,” Cisco’s then CFO Scott Herren said during an investor conference back in mid-2024. “And we’ve seen our wireless business, our orders greater than $1 million grew more than 20% in the fourth quarter.”

Extreme Networks is not the only vendor taking a personnel bite out of HPE. Nokia recently snared former Juniper Networks VP Pavan Kurapati as its new SVP and CTO for data center networking, while Equinix plucked Juniper Networks veteran Gordon Mackintosh as its new SVP of partner sales and programs.

HPE executives have acknowledged the management culling, though have added such moves will open up other investment opportunities, including a doubling of its sales team.

“So with any combination you're going to find that there are going to be areas of overlap that enable you to de-duplicate and invest in strategic areas. I mean, that's the power of scale, right?," Rami Rahim, former Juniper Networks CEO and now EVP for HPE Networking, told SDxCentral during an interview at the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona. “That's going to free up the capacity for us to go into invest in new areas that, in and of itself, allows us to double down in strategic directions for us without necessarily having to spend a lot more.”

Smaller competitors could be pressured … and become targets?

Rhodes also ladled some cautionary praise on smaller rival Ruckus, which Extreme Networks has been rumored to be pursuing, noting that vendor is among those that play “at the lower end” and could be more susceptible to surging memory pricing.

“I think they might start to feel a little bit more of a pinch on the cost of the DDR for RAM issue,” Rhodes said. “Because they operate at the lower level and more price sensitive markets … it's a higher percentage of the BOM [build of material] for them as it increases, and so they would have to raise price a lot more in order to cover and maintain margin there. … “We'll see. I mean, it's a good company. They've got good vertical markets, etc., but time will tell … whether that impacts them or not.”

Meyercord had previously hinted that the vendor was interested in an acquisition but would not bite on naming names 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 during Extreme Networks’ most recent earnings call. “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.”