WLAN vendor Trapeze Networks Monday announced plans to acquire WLAN-based location systems vendor, Newbury Networks, and the move could put a dent in Cisco's own plans for the location-aware market. Every market report shows Cisco with the lion's share of the enterprise WLAN market. But that's not stopping rivals who see wireless networking as a way to reshape what the corporate network means, and take mindshare and marketshare from Cisco.
St. Louis-based Belden - which aquired Trapeze in the summer - has been firmly rooted in wireline networks at the most basic level: copper and fiber optic cabling and similar gear. It's acquisition of Trapeze, a WLAN controller pioneer, suggests that Belden sees radio signals as the next-generation medium for enterprise network connectivity by PC and non-PC clients.
Now the Trapeze unit has acquired Newbury Networks, which offers Wi-Fi-based location technology that can be married with an array of higher-end applications for asset tracking, inventory management, workflow optimization and a host of other applications that can put an object's (or a person's) X/Y cooridinates to good use.
Cisco has its own location play: morphing its existing Wi-Fi location appliance capabilities into part of the new Mobility Services Engine (MSE, announced in May 2008), a platform for processing wireless network and client data, which can then be passed as input to higher-level applications, in this case an asset tracking program, for example, to keep track of high-value equipment. Check out our MSE slideshow.
One company taking advantage of the MSE API is Agito Networks, which offers hardware and software to link Wi-Fi-enabled cell phones to shift seamlessly between cellular networks and enterprise WLANs. Cisco Subnet Blogger Brad Reese talked with Agito last June, and in December for Cisco Subnet's Cisco News & Reviews podcast series.
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Gartner's 2008 WLAN Magic Quadrant
According to Gartner's 2008 WLAN Magic Quadrant:
Trapeze Networks appears to have taken a step backwards since it was acquired by Belden, slipping from visionary to niche player.
Sincerely,
Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Do you believe in magic?
Brad Reese points out above that Gartner has published a "Magic Quadrant" on WLAN. Indeed they have. What Mr. Reese fails to point out is that there is an appearance of a conflict of interest between Gartner and at least one of the companies listed in the that report. Tim Zimmerman, one of the authors of the report, worked for Meru Networks as late as the first quarter of this calendar year, and Meru's VP of marketing Rachna Alahwat was a Gartner analyst covering WLAN.
Unlike Mr. Reese, I don't believe in Magic but I am superstitious about so called independent industry analysts who are long on opinion and short on facts. Everytime I see one of these characters cross my path, I run the other way.
No Reponse from Gartner
Hi Brian,
Brought your "issue" regarding the appearance of a conflict of interest to Gartner's attention and received no response from Gartner.
Sincerely,
Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
Gartner response
Hi Brad,
Who did you raise this issue with in Gartner and receive no response from? Please let me know.
Trapeze did bring this concern to Gartner. Our Ombudsan investigated these points and found no instances of wrongdoing. There were no signs throughout the research process that showed any of our analysts favoring a particular company.
Independence and objectivity are at the core of our business. As such, we take it very seriously whenever someone contacts us about our research process or methodology. We welcome that feedback.
The concerns regarding this specific Magic Quadrant were also discussed in an article by IT Knowledge Exchange. This article provides additional information that you might find valuable: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/networkhub/trapeze-not-flying-high-over-magic-quadrant/
Thanks, Andrew
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