Juniper, Extreme headed the same direction

Juniper Networks and Extreme Networks, two emerging network equipment outfits, will announce a partnership next week to offer greater compatibility between the two companies' technologies.

The move comes on the heels of this week's successful financial results, with Juniper posting its first gains as a public company and Extreme reversing a loss from its previous year.

"We sell to the same customers, so we want to make sure our customers have seamless interoperability," said Extreme's marketing vice president George Prodan.

Extreme sells most of its high-speed switching equipment to businesses, but 20 percent of its revenue last quarter came from service providers, Prodan said.

Juniper makes high-speed routers used in the Internet's "core," or backbone, through which most Net information travels. Extreme's technology is used by service providers to connect their networks to each other.

Extreme's initial success was built largely on providing equipment to corporations. But with the success of competitor Foundry Networks in the service provider market, the company may be looking to extend its technology.