Channel onlookers have hailed the recent bout of acquisitions in the networking space as positive news for resellers and predict the market’s consolidation will continue apace.

Last month, The Gores Group, the private equity backer behind vendors Enterasys and SER Solutions, announced it was taking the controlling stake in a joint venture with Siemens, involving the vendor’s enterprise communications unit, SEN.
A week before that, switching vendor Foundry Networks announced it had been snapped up by storage vendor Brocade in a $3bn (£1.5bn) deal.

Enterasys has been bullish this year, with chief executive Mike Fabiaschi claiming he was looking to acquire to help position his company as a viable rival to Cisco in the networking market.

Rumours abounded in May that Enterasys was looking to seal a deal to buy out rival Extreme Networks.

Speaking after the Foundry and Brocade deal, switching vendor Consentry’s director for northern Europe Alex Raistrick, told CRN: “There will be more consolidation. We are all surprised that nobody has bought Extreme yet; it has a good, loyal market.”

Rob Bamforth, principal analyst for Quocirca, claimed that the SEN joint venture could be a boon for Enterasys resellers. “It gives Enterasys more clout and it should open up new opportunities for its channel,” he said.

“If you look at the technologies and services that are converging, it is clear they are not going to be provided by minnows. Consolidation is not just a wireless issue, it is a broader communications issue.”

In an open letter to his company’s partners and customers, Fabiaschi said: “Enterasys and Siemens already co-exist in many customer environments. Customers will be able to extend their investment in one to the other. We will explore synergistic opportunities after the transaction closes.”