Foundry Networks and Extreme Networks both reported strong revenue in their most recent fiscal quarters - although the gap between them is widening and they will both face a new threat in future quarters.

Every once in a while I like to check in on how these two companies are doing, the top survivors of the Gigabit Ethernet startup boom.

Foundry's revenue for the fourth quarter of 2007 was $168.7 million, a 27.7% jump over its revenue in the same quarter a year earlier. Extreme's revenue for the most recent quarter was $92.5 million, up 7% from the same quarter a year ago.

Extreme says that's its highest revenue in two years, and the growth is being fueled by its latest products.

However, Foundry has continued to widen the gap. When I checked in on the companies in the fall of 2006, Foundry showed $118.8 million in quarterly revenue and Extreme was at $83.8 million.

In terms of profit, there is also a gap. Foundry reported net income of $28.9 million, or 18 cents per diluted share, while Extreme reported net income of $4.1 million, or 4 cents per diluted share.

Foundry gets a significant portion of its revenue (19%) from the federal government. Non-federal government North American revenue is 48%, and the rest comes from overseas.

These companies have managed to survive even though Cisco dominates their market and other players compete as well. Now, Juniper is coming in - and the company has come right out and said that there's "not room for more than two players" in the market. It will be interesting to see if Extreme and Foundry will be able to compete.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.