Alan Cohen, VP of Marketing and Product Management at Wi-Fi switch maker Airespace, recently sent me an update on Airespace and their outlook on the Wi-Fi industry. I thought the email was worth including, so here are Alan's key in trends, in his words...

I wanted to borrow a few moments to update you on 8 points: 4 trends that reflect what we see happening in the market and 4 trends that characterize what Airespace has been up to over the past 2 seasons.  Our business has grown dramatically, and the inflection point in the enterprise wireless market is as self-evident as the cooling season before us.
• We see the shift from Verticals to the Enterprise.  Today, over 50% of our deployments are in the core enterprise segment.  Contrast this with 70% of implementations which occurred in healthcare and education only a year ago. Moreover, the average first installation deployments have moved from an average of 35-40 Access Points to over 100.  And we are seeing an increasing shift in senior management in using the wireless network.  We provided the wireless network for the Microsoft CEO Summit, where over 100 Fortune 500 CEOs used tablet computers to interact, share information and participate in one of the top management summits in the world.
 

• We see vendor consolidation. Airespace has gained the number 2 position in WLAN systems market as well as a top slot in the overall Enterprise WLAN market.  Following are the recent Dell’Oro numbers issued in the past 2 weeks.

  Total Worldwide WLAN Switch / Server / Appliance Revenues
  Total Market 2Q04

  Vendor (Rank)
  Symbol (1)
  Airespace (2)
  Bluesocket (3)
  Others, including Aruba, Avaya, Hewlett-Packard, Trapeze Networks, and additional vendors.

• We see increased focus on Voice over WLAN usage and the entrance of significant handset and systems players into the market.  Airespace, partnering with NEC in Japan, is supporting the upcoming launch of NTT DoCoMo’s dual mode FOMA project.  The ramp of VoWLAN deployments is now starting to pick up, and we are active with all three of our OEM partners, NEC, Alcatel, and Nortel to support their efforts in this space.  As you know, these 3 companies are major players (they own close to 40% of the enterprise PBX market) and their focus in enterprise wireless voice will play a tremendous role in further accelerating this trend.  Moreover, we are working with cellular handset vendors across the world as they look to bring dual mode Cellular/Wi-Fi services to the enterprise.
• We see location as a killer application for enterprise productivity and security.  Today, almost 50 enterprises are using our high-resolution location services, and our 802.11 Asset Tags will soon to hit the market.  Like mobile voice services, location tracking enhances the productivity equation of enterprise wireless networking and bolsters the business benefits for our customers.  The time savings gained simply “finding things” is incredible.  Being able to accurately understand if a security infraction occurs within the enterprise will become a cardinal rule of wireless security.  While it’s possible to claim the ability to triangulate and locate a client, without use of RF fingerprinting technology (to account for multi-path), the accuracy of location services is suspect.
• Airespace and the market has benefited tremendously from partnerships and standards.  Our OEMs partners, of course, have played a key role in our success, and so have a broad range of application and technology partners. Most recently, we have worked closely with partners to further solidify enterprise WLAN security:  working with Atheros Communication and Funk Software, we introduced Proactive Key Caching, an approach to increase the seamlessness and mobility of the newly ratified 802.11i security standard.  Working with InfoExpress and the Zone Labs Division of Checkpoint, we introduced a series of network access control services that provide unified client integrity checks -- including authentication and anti-virus verification – across the wired and wireless network.   In the next 60 days, you will hear more about many additional partnerships that are bringing additional services and value to our customers.
• Airespace continues to receive recognition for its technology, as we on Best of Show awards at N+I Las Vegas and N+I Japan. The market has created a virtuous circle for our technical innovation and customer traction and has helped propel us to a leadership post
• Airespace has expanded rapidly. With over 160 people, we have come to the point of being an increasingly global and distributed organization, with more than half of our employees working outside of San Jose, California, corporate headquarters.  We successfully brought up a development and support center in Bangalore, India, and are expanding rapidly in Asia and Europe.  One of our most exciting victories was winning the WLAN infrastructure at the world-class Hong Kong Airport.
• Airespace completed a $20M Mezzanine Round, bringing total investment in the company to roughly $60 million and we have expanded our management team to support the great opportunity in front of us.  The key business focus of the company right now is to bring the company to cash flow break-even while garnering the top market share position in our segment.