Cisco a WLAN market "champion"

Firm notes leadership position, company size; Aruba and HP also coronated

By Jim Duffy on Tue, 12/20/11 - 5:13pm.

Cisco, along with HP and Aruba, was listed as a market "champion" in WLANs this week by Canadian market research firm Info-Tech Group. And in the "just a remarkable coincidence" dept., the three champions are the three market leaders in Dell'Oro Group's Q3, 2011, WLAN tabulations.

In Info-Tech's WLAN Vendor Landscape, the firm lauded each vendor's market share, product line, management capabilities and wired/wireless integration. Info-Tech sees WLAN demand growing rapidly as enterprises broaden the footprint of wireless access to corporate networks and data throughout the organization. As a result, the firm believes the need for wired LANs will reduce significantly by 2015, especially now that WLANs are faster, more reliable and secure than they were a few years ago.

Indeed, Info-Tech Lead Research Analyst Mark Tauschek believes the industry is moving quickly to an all-wireless access network:

"I think it's safe to say that starting in 2013 you won't see a lot of new wired access networks deployed in the enterprise - the future is almost here, and it's all wireless."

In tabbing Cisco as a champion, Info-Tech noted the company's leading market share and largesse as advantages that might appeal to buyers. The firm notes that enterprises with large and complex networks may prefer to purchase end-to-end hardware and support from a company as large and influential as Cisco.

This is a plug for Cisco's own end-to-end architectural approach to selling business transformation systems rather than individual bit movers. Cisco pounds the pulpit to enforce this approach while other market watchers decry it as essentially a Trojan Horse that doesn't deliver the TCO, operational or performance benefits proponents claim.

According to Dell'Oro Group, Cisco share of the $780.6 million WLAN market in Q3 was 51%.

Aruba was lauded by Info-Tech for its integrated security features and versatility. The firm note sthat Aruba equipment can be deployed in indoor, outdoor and industrial environments, and that the company itself is showing impressive growth as the largest pure-play vendor in the enterprise WLAN market. Aruba's single-dashboard management of wired, wireless and legacy networks from multiple vendors also impressed Info-Tech.

Aruba had an 11.8% share of the WLAN market in Q3, according to Dell'Oro, second to Cisco.

HP Networking was tabbed as a champion for its broad WLAN product line, which Info-Tech notes could appeal to large organizations looking to deploy an integrated wired and wireless network on a low budget. HP's key differentiators are similar to Aruba's (which negates the differentiation, if someone else also has it): full integration of wired and wireless networks with single-pane-of-glass management.

HP had a 7.5% share of the WLAN market in Q3, according to Dell'Oro, good for a No. 3 ranking.

Enterasys and Ruckus Wireless straddled Info-Tech's quadrant between "innovator" and champion; Aerohive was deemed an innovator; Motorola a "market pillar"; and Meraki and Meru "emerging players."

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