Going against Cisco in the enterprise WLAN market is as close as we can get these days to a David and Goliath scenario. Forrester Research says that 66 percent of U.S. companies use in-house WLANs to provide access to applications and Gartner says that Cisco holds 66 percent of this market. But enterprise WLAN start-ups believe they have a chance too, arguing that the market is growing fast enough for them to gain a foothold in it, especially if they offer innovative technology.
Among the competitors to Cisco are four companies founded in 2002--Extricom, Aruba Networks, Meru Networks and Trapeze Networks. According to Gartner, Aruba now has 7 percent of the WLAN equipment market, Meru 1.6 percent, Trapeze 1.5 percent and Extricom's share is somewhere below Trapeze's. "The whole WLAN space is ripe with innovation," says Farpoint Group's analyst Craig Mathias. "It's a good time for new companies to come in."
For more:
- see this InformationWeek report
MORE: Joanie Wexler asks whether it is time to kill Cisco's fat AP, as "old style WiFi is going out of fashion." This is especially the case now, since if you use Cisco's thin AP, controller-based WLANs, you can apply wired Cisco security functions to your WiFi traffic. Report