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Wireless Vendors Bitch About A Bad Quarter
[...] However, both Aruba and Meru are at each other's throats for the coveted second place in the 802.11n sector - an important standard which provides faster, more reliable connections. 802.11n kit makes up about a fifth of the wireless LAN market now, but vendors believe 802. [...] The enterprise wireless LAN market has had a terrible quarter, with users' plans put on hold - and the vendors are arguing over small gains and losses in market share. [...] You are here. Home News Mobile & Wireless Wireless Vendors Bitch About A Bad Quarter. [...]
Can Wi-Fi Rescue The 3G Operators?
[...] All wireless vendors are looking leaner and hungrier at the moment, and Lo counters the news that rival Meru raised $30 million in venture funding, by claiming not to need that kind of support. You can always raise money from loan sharks. Our business is doing OK, and our investors are continuing to support us. [...] It's a retro market, really, that has failed once. The previous leader, Colubris, was bought up by HP when it found that wireless service providers were not enough to sustain it. Ruckus' experience in working with operators could make it a successor if the market takes off again, said Lo. [...]
Meru Launches Wireless Service Assurance
[...] Although times have been tough for wireless LAN vendors, Meru claims to be going from strength to strength, and all vendors predict a growth folliwing the eventual ratification of the fast 802.11n Wi-fi standard. Other vendors including Aruba and Zyxel have concentrated on producing lower cost offerings to meet the needs of users in a recession. [...] Meru is better placed than other vendors to offer this sort of feature, she said, because it uses a channel blanket where all access points are on the same radio frequency. It's therefore easy for one AP to spend part of its time acting as a client to test the others, without interrupting the wireless service. [...] Office wireless LANs can cause support headaches because laptops may fail to connect for many different reasons. Network staff can spend hours looking for a network problem when the fault is in the laptop, the wireless card or its drivers. [...]
Wireless Company Aruba Bids To Manage Wired LANs
[...] When Airwave was an independent company, its product was heavily used by enterprises needing to manage multi-vendor wireless LANs, or supplement features lacking in the management systems of wireless LAN vendors. [...] Since buying it, Aruba, has kept Airwave's multi-vendor abilities, says Hockaday. Sixty percent of AWMS installations are on Cisco wireless LANs. We have kept to the plan of multi-vendor working, and and will continue to do so . [...] Aruba Networks has launched a new version of the Airwave wireless management product it acquired two years ago, giving it more ability to manage wired networks, and keep its multi-vendor strengths. [...]
Netgear Looks To SMBs With Wireless Management Offerings
[...] As the IT administrator of a growing business where wireless networking is critical, I need a lot more than standalone AP vendors can provide in terms of management. On the other hand, previous solutions designed for a much larger environment have not been cost-effective to implement, said Chris Hemmings of Penguin Internet. [...] Most wireless networking vendors offer either expensive solutions designed for the FORTUNE 500 or single AP solutions - neither of which is suitable for a growing business, said Laurent Masia, Netgear product line manager for managed infrastructure products. [...] Netgear said it designed the ProSafe Wireless Controller WC7520 specifically for mid-market companies, and it scales up to 1,500 users. Features include central wireless management based on a full-featured wireless controller, expandable to support up to 50 APs on a single unit, stacking capability for up to three controllers and 150 APs, controller redundancy, wireless security with rogue AP detection, heat maps and triangulation, guest access enables restricted access to the network, with a captive portal and voice over Wi-Fi support with fast roaming and SpectraLink Voice Priority (SVP) QoS compliance. [...]
Ciena Snaps Up Nortel’s Optical And Ethernet Assets
[...] Other vendors, including Avaya, Nokia Siemens and Telefon AB L.M. Ericcson, already have bought parts of Nortel, including its enterprise business, Code Division Multiple Access wireless unit and wireless technology business. [...]
Wireless Providers Face Tough Times
[...] Nokia-Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola and other wireless infrastructure vendors should brace themselves for a difficult year, says ABI Research. A new report is predicting a 6 percent reduction in expenditures for 2009. [...] Nokia-Siemens, Ericsson, Motorola and other wireless infrastructure vendors are expected to pull back expenditures by 6 percent in 2009. [...] The bright side for these vendors is the potential for growth in developing areas. ABI sees opportunities for 3G growth in Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa. Carriers are still very much expanding their footprints in these regions, and voice and messaging traffic are the main drivers. [...]
New Wireless LAN Product Hits “Underserved” SME Market
[...] U4EA also compared itself to enterprise vendors Cisco, Aruba and Meru, leaving out other SME WLAN vendors such as Extricom, Bluesocket and Aerohive, the last of which claims to be 75 percent cheaper than enterprise Wi-Fi brands because it has no wireless LAN controller, distributing the functions in software loaded on the access points. [...] Ironically enough, the U4EA system stems from an earlier attempt to do away with wireless LAN controllers. The system is based on technology from NextHop, a company which planned to offer a software-based alternative that network vendors could install on Ethernet switches. [...] A new wireless LAN controller said Adam Conway, vice president of product management at Aerohive, also at Wireless and Mobile 09. Isn't it time to get rid of wireless LAN controllers completely . [...]
WLAN Maker Meru Goes For IPO
[...] Meru has been developing its product line, focusing on using 802.11n to offer better services that can replace cables in the enterprise. However, some other vendors such as Aerohive are moving to the cloud, offering wireless LANs that can be managed remotely, removing the need for specialist hardware except for wireless access points. [...] However, this year, the strong performance of faster wireless LANs based on the IEEE 802.11n standard has brightened wireless LAN makers' prospectsm particularly Aruba, the only major publicly-quoted wireless LAN vendor. [...] Aruba offers wireless security services as a service but has not moved to offer completely cloud-based WLANs, while newcomer Meraki has launched itself completely as a cloud-based WLAN. [...]
Cisco Wireless Launch Includes WebEx On the iPhone
[...] A number of network assurance vendors, including RSA, ArcSight and NetScout Systems, are using an open API to bring their offerings to wireless customers through Cisco's Mobility Services Engine. [...] Cisco is also building an 802.11n wireless offering that includes access points, controllers, management capabilities and an open API that enables users to expose network data and services. The company's new 5500 Series Wireless Controller offers improved performance in the delivery video and rich media to wireless devices, and its OfficeExtend is a wireless complement to its Virtual Office portfolio. [...] In addition, Cisco is offering expanded professional services to help businesses migrate from legacy wireless networks to 802.11n networks. The services touch on evaluating whether an environment is ready to move to a Wi-Fi network to helping them evaluate collaboration applications such as voice and video for their wireless environments. [...]
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