Wired LANS starting to take a back seat?

06 Jan 2012

A recent overview of the Wireless LAN (WLAN) market by Info-Tech Research Group points to declining interest in wired deployments, significant innovation among WLAN vendors and names Aruba, Cisco and HP as ‘market champions’.

					“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.”

That’s the view of Mark Tauschek, a lead research analyst at independent IT market research company Info-Tech Research Group. With demand for mobility in the enterprise growing rapidly, he says, vendors of wireless LAN equipment have made significant innovations in recent years. As a result, by 2015, the need for organisations to maintain wired LANs will “significantly reduce", he adds: “We are rapidly moving to an all-wireless access network."

But before companies embark on any radical rip-out-and-replace exercise, it’s worth bearing in mind that a significant period of co-existence for wired and wireless technologies is likely to be the norm in most corporate IT environments for some time to come.

That, Tauschek says, means that IT teams will need integrated wired/wireless administration and management tools and that vendors that can offer network admins a ‘single pane of glass’ management view of both “provide a compelling vision” for IT decision-makers embarking on network refresh projects.

In its recent WLAN Vendor Landscape, published in December 2011, the analyst firm identifies Cisco Systems, HP Networking and Aruba Networks as market champions in this space.

Competition is fierce as mobile devices invade the enterprise, creating new demands for WLAN vendors and pushing innovation in the space, according to the firm. “WLAN solutions are evolving rapidly and are significantly faster, more reliable and more secure than they were a few short years ago,” it adds.

Among Info-Tech’s WLAN market champions, Cisco Systems holds the market share lead, and its ‘industry giant’ status makes it a popular choice among organisations with large and complex network hardware environments, says the report.

Also a champion, Aruba Networks is praised for its “robust, well-rounded and innovative wireless solution” and offers “some of the best security features in the market”. It’s the largest pure-play vendor in the enterprise WLAN market, Info-Tech points out, and has “the ability to manage wired, wireless and legacy networks from multiple vendors via a single dashboard.”

Rounding out the ‘market champions’ list, HP Networking offers a sophisticated array of WLAN solutions and is a good choice for large institutions and enterprises looking to deploy an integrated wired and wireless networking environment on a limited budget. Again, a key differentiator is HP’s full integration of wired and wireless networks with single-pane-of-glass management.

A full list of Info-Tech Research Group’s recommendations for selecting a Wireless LAN vendor can be found here.

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