Extreme Networks Channel Partners Get Road Map

Extreme Networks channel partners are getting to know Joe Vitalone at the company’s Virtual Partner Conference 2020. Hired in June as chief revenue officer (CRO), Vitalone oversees Extreme’s global partners.

Just four months into the job at Extreme, Vitalone spent 35 years in sales, marketing, operations and channel at companies such as Polycom, Mitel, Lifesize, ShoreTel and others. In addition to channel oversight, he’s also responsible for global sales and sales operations teams.

Vitalone eagerly shared a channel strategy for the company’s 2021 fiscal year, which began July 1. One topic of particular interest is MSPs, and where they fit in Extreme’s growth strategy, which is all about cloud.

We also learned that Extreme promoted Brenda Richardson, strategic alignment lead, Americas sales and channels, just a couple of weeks ago. She joined the company nine months ago as director, strategic alliances at Verizon. Prior to that, Richardson worked at Cisco for more than 10 years.

The Extreme Networks Virtual Partner Conference 2020, in its second day Wednesday, is seeing record registration and attendance of more than 2,000 channel partners. Compare that to a couple of hundred attendees at a physical event.

Partners drive more than 90% of the company’s revenue.

Product News

Extreme Networks on Wednesday announced it has integrated Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy Intrusion Prevention (BIPS) capability into Extreme AirDefense Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems (WIPS). This allows network administrators to address threats against Bluetooth and BLE devices. AirDefense (WIPS) combines automated detection, identification, classification, notification and migration capabilities in a single offer.

Extreme Networks’ Perry Correll

“WIPS is about wireless; it not just about Wi-Fi — and that’s important. Even though we’ve got 14 billion Wi-Fi devices, there are about 4 billion BLE devices out there. That’s what this release is focused on,” said Perry Correll, director of product marketing at Extreme Networks.

BLE beacons are easy to deploy, but companies may not know they’re there.

“I want to know what’s happening in my network. If I walk into my favorite coffee shop and there’s a BLE beacon, and on my phone it pops up and says, “it’s pumpkin spice time, get half off,” that’s great. But if I walk in tomorrow and get a message that says, “it’s better next door because someone hacked into the beacon,” it’s a bad thing. Or, if I walk in the following day and it says, “skip the line, order now and put in your credit card number” — not everyone will do it, but a certain percentage of people will. That’s what our new integrated capability is about,” said Correll. “It’s really the next evolution.”

Fifteen years ago, network and security administrators wanted to know about rogue access points (APs). Now they need to know about rogue beacons.

In September, Extreme enhanced ExtremeCloud IQ with new features called “Essentials.” These are four primary enterprise service applications integrated into ExtremeCloud IQ – at no extra cost. The service applications are …