Why does Cisco care about HP's Colubris buy?

Interesting that Cisco's Analyst Relations blog wants to know your views on the recent move by HP to acquire WLAN vendor Colubris. Nicole Hall, writing in Cisco's blog poses a question: "This gives ProCurve, HPs networking division, their .11n and vertical angle ...so does this mean ProCurve will become a 'Real' player in WLAN? Interested in your thoughts?" Why does Cisco care?

Well, here are some thoughts from John Cox, Network World senior editor who follows the wireless industry:

Cisco continues to hold a huge majority share of the enterprise WLAN market, over 60%. HP's buy of Colubris poses no threat to that whatsoever. HP buys an existing 11n product line (Colubris was among the first to announce 11n enterprise gear), and can leverage some technical advantages with those products, because 11n's 300Mbps data rates are going to stress the network in new ways. Specifically, Colubris has had some success in high density deployments, with lots of users, and high traffic volumes. In a related issue, Colubris announced in 2005, plans to integrate wired and wireless traffic into one controller, based on new chips from vendors like SiNett and Broadcom. But so far hasn't introduced such a product. If HP pushes aggressively in that course, enterprise adopters might find it a compelling case as 11n wireless becomes the de facto access mode to the corporate network. In that sense, HP like the other Cisco rivals, can put pressure on Cisco to be more innovative in wireless.

So what are your thoughts?

Related reading:

 Colubris lays out WLAN road map 
 
Wireless vendors target enterprise nets with 802.11n products
 
Wireless LAN vendor Colubris reaps $14 million in new backing
 
802.11n blue ribbon winners

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