Posted by: Paul DeBeasi
Three recent merger and acquisition announcements have the potential to impact the enterprise wireless landscape. Fist, Belden announced that they would acquire Trapeze Networks. Belden is a $2 Billion manufacturer of signal transmission products and is known in the networking market for their data and multimedia cables. Trapeze was an early wireless LAN innovator. They were a member of the 2003 graduating class that saw vendors such as Aruba Networks and Airespace (acquired by Cisco) launch their initial products. Trapeze has a flexible product architecture that allows forwarding decisions to be made at the controller or at the AP. However, Trapeze lacked the financial and market clout to independently compete in the wireless LAN market.
This deal baffles me. How will a company that sells $2 Billion worth of cabling every year train their sales force to compete with Cisco, Aruba and Motorola in the enterprise? How will the marketing organization establish Belden as a credible wireless brand? And, how will a tiny wireless team gain any mindshare within a company the size of Belden? I just don't see it happening.
Secondly, the Gores Group (the private equity firm that owns Enterasys), recently purchased the Siemens Enterprise Communications group. Both companies will be combined into a single company that will offer Ethernet switches, UC, VoIP, and the HiPath product line. Somewhat lost in this news (at least it was initially lost to me) is that the Chantry wireless LAN product line was also part of this deal.
The new company (the name is undecided at this time) will be in a position to offer wired/wireless equipment with wired/wireless management. Potentially, this could be a powerful combination. However, my bet is that the wireless product line will get lost among all the other products (just like it did at Siemens) so that the full potential will not be realized. Neither Enterasys nor Siemens were wireless market leaders. So, why would the combination of the two result in a wireless juggernaut?
Lastly, HP ProCurve recently announced their intention to acquire Colubris. Colubris is an 802.11n innovator and was one of the first to bring an enterprise-class 802.11n AP to market. The Colburis product architecture is flexible so that product forwarding decisions can be made at the controller or at the AP (similar to Trapeze).
HP ProCurve has a wireless LAN product line too, but their lack of 802.11n products caused them to fall behind the competition. So, the acquisition of Colubris fills a hole in their product line. In addition, the HP ProCurve architecture only supports centralized forwarding decisions (in effect, the access points are little more than intelligent antennas). So, the Colubris acquisition also gives HP ProCurve access to a much more flexible architecture.
HP ProCurve, has the opportunity to integrate their wireless/wired products and network management solutions. It will not be easy. The company cultures are very different, the product architectures are very different, and the channel must be taught to sell the new products. Ultimately, my bet is that HP ProCurve WILL take advantage of this opportunity to deliver integrated wireless/wired solutions. However, how long will it take them to unify their products, their channel, and their outbound message? And, what will the competitive landscape look like when they do?
In the end, the HP ProCurve deal is the only one of the three deals that will have any lasting impact on the wireless LAN market.
Colubris backed by HP will clearly cause Aruba a lot of problems as it is as good a product offering and now has the marketing and distribution strength to go with the product.
Posted by: Michael | September 05, 2008 at 12:10 PM