Here’s an article regarding Extreme Networks’ announcement at the Gartner Data Center Conference which promotes a fairly major paradigm shift. Essentially, Extreme Networks is proposing to eliminate server level virtual switching, which is just the opposite of Cisco’s proposed path. On one hand, I see where Extreme is coming from or at least where they are trying to go.

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Virtual switches on servers are more complex from a management standpoint, and hardware switching is more reliable. The problem I see is that Extreme is not only going to collide with Cisco and their massive market share on this. Instead, this will also put them at odds from a strategy standpoint with the likes of HP, Juniper and Force10. Extreme is going to face an up-hill “us against the rest” battle, and that is tough to wage when you only have 1.5% market share, seriously declining revenues and major reorganization changes including the CEO stepping down a month or so ago. IT leaders have to have faith in the company before they can have faith in the technology – no matter how (potentially) innovative.

At the same time, it is tough to gain market share by following the herd, and I applaud them for the cutting edge attempt and taking such a brand defining stand. May the best solution win.