The 2006 Webtorials “WLAN State-of-the-Market” report is hot off the virtual press, and it reveals a slew of trends and even a few surprises.

The report, authored by yours truly, is the third annual Webtorials report based on end-user research about WLAN deployments, attitudes, and experiences. It compiles results of a Web-based survey, conducted in April 2006, of 350 Webtorials subscribers, 80% of whom said they played a role in the decision-making process of WLAN purchasing and installation.

Webtorials is an educational Web site for networking professionals. This year’s report was sponsored by Aruba Wireless Networks.

Wi-Fi, it turns out, is high on the “clout” list in enterprises. It tied with VPNs as the network technology (both wired and wireless) of top importance to enterprises over the next 18 months, both garnering a 5.6 aggregate score of importance out of a possible 7. And wireless intrusion detection and prevention (WIDP) systems appear to be catching on as enterprises realize they need ‘em whether they condone the use of WLANs in their organizations or not. Overlay WIDP products ranked third in the devices most likely to represent a significant component of enterprises’ WLAN systems in the next six months after laptops and PDAs - basic client products that you need to even have a WLAN.

In addition, it looks like enterprise Wi-Fi deployments are quickly moving beyond common areas such as conference rooms, lobbies, and cafeterias (80%) to include individual work spaces. Wi-Fi has been now deployed in user offices and cubicles in 62% of the respondents’ companies. And, not surprisingly, but valuable to verify, the primary architecture wars have pretty well been resolved: Nearly half the respondents said they are using or are likely to use thin access points (AP) with a controller for centralized management and security, compared to just 33% saying so last year.

Correspondingly, plans to use intelligent stand-alone APs with no centralized controller dropped by six percentage points over last year, and plans to use stand-alone APs with some centralized management decreased by about 7%.

Want more details? Read the next newsletter. And if you can’t wait, download the whole report (free, but registration required).

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.