Dell's Potential Networking Acquisition Targets

Brocade Communication Systems

Market cap: $2.58 billionRevenue: $1.9 billionNet loss: $76.58 million (compared with a net income of $167.1 million the year before and a net income of $76.87 million two years ago)If You Are Betting at Home: Brocade may be a favorite. The company reportedly quietly put itself up for sale last year as HP was angling to buy a networking company to better compete with Cisco. But HP ended up buying 3Com and Brocade committed to partnering with companies such as IBM, Dell and NetApp. Still, we know the company has been open to a deal, and the price range looks right.

Netgear

Market cap: $930 millionRevenue: $686.6 millionNet income: $9.33 million (down from $18 million the year before and $45.95 million two years ago)If You Are Betting at Home: Financially Netgear may be a better fit, but it specializes in small and midmarket businesses, not data centers.

MRV Communications

Market cap: $163.9 millionRevenue: $538 millionNet loss: $123.2 millionIf You Are Betting at Home: Offers a line of enterprise switches and routers as well as carrier Ethernet access and optical transport. But net losses here are high.

Extreme Networks

Market cap: $269.5 millionRevenue: $335.6 millionNet income: $2.81 millionIf You Are Betting at Home: Provider of network infrastructure equipment and services for enterprises and data centers could be a good bet if it’s for sale.

Arista Networks—The Sleeper

Financials aren’t available on his privately held, privately funded start-up, but it could be an attractive target.Why? The company offers a high-density, 10 Gigabit Ethernet data-center switch with a customizable operating system. Plus its CEO Jayshree Ullal hails from Cisco where she ran its Data Center Switching and Services group. The company’s website features a joint whitepaper with Dell EqualLogic on “Building Scalable Cloud Storage Solutions.”

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