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	TABLE OF CONTENTS Home Go Wide Mobile Data Quest Monday Morning Quarterback

In 2007, enterprises will continue to make massive investments in wireless. An increasing proportion of that spending, however, will be codified in the IT budget rather than slipped through the cracks at departmental level. And companies will get more and better technology for their money.

Take Wi-Fi. Ten years ago, a notebook NIC would set you back $600 or more. In 2007, the latest iteration of Wi-Fi--802.11n--will deliver about 100 times the performance of the original 802.11. More notable, if you adjust for inflation, you can get an entire new notebook with embedded 802.11n for about what you paid 10 years ago for just the card. Similar trends hold true for cellular data and 3G: NICs will be given away--provided you're willing to sign a two-year service contract. OK, that's a significant catch, but the potential value of mobile broadband service, available anytime and nearly anywhere, is irresistible for companies with a high proportion of mobile employees.

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2007 SURVIVOR GUIDE INTRODUCTION BUSINESS STRATEGY SECURITY WIRELESS STORAGE & SERVERS MESSAGING & COLLABORATION APPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS NETWORK MANAGEMENT NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

It's not wireless nirvana for all, though. Yes, there is potential for increased productivity, but there's also a ton of risk, most notably from the obvious challenge of securing the wireless communication path and the data residing on all those laptops and smartphones. There's also the risk of jumping into the market too soon. Products are still complex, and future standards may well render today's offerings inadequate, if not obsolete.

Vendorscape

Cisco dominates the enterprise WLAN market with nearly 60 percent share, according to the most recent numbers from Synergy Research Group. Symbol continues to hang onto the No. 2 slot, with 11 percent of the market, but that number--and the company's mindshare--have been declining for the past three years. We expect Symbol to rebound somewhat thanks to new product introductions and impending new ownership under the Motorola umbrella. But the company's strength in WLANs is expected to continue to mirror its vertical market focus, especially in retail operations.

For more conventional carpeted-enterprise and campus deployments, Aruba provides the most credible competition to Cisco. In fact, the company likes to brag that the vast majority of its sales come from organizations that use Cisco Ethernet gear. Aruba has a knack for zeroing in on the biggest problems facing enterprise IT, including security, capacity, mobility and quality of service. While Cisco's strategy is all about tight integration of wireless and wired network services--best exemplified by the WiSM (Wireless Services Module) WLAN controller module for the Catalyst 6500--Aruba preaches an integration strategy built around standards, where wired and wireless networks peacefully co-exist.

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Trapeze has leveraged key partnerships, especially with Nortel and 3Com, to carve out a strong position, primarily as an OEM provider. Meru has garnered some attention, especially in the education market but also through partnerships with Foundry and Avaya. Its unique architecture addresses many of the major shortcomings of mainstream product offerings, particularly for Vo-Fi (VoIP over Wi-Fi), but how it accomplishes its magic is still a closely guarded secret. Bluesocket, Colubris, Extreme Networks, Hewlett-Packard and Siemens have enjoyed some success by targeting specific vertical or geographic markets, leveraging leadership positions in certain areas or maintaining the loyalty of an installed customer base.

Although the market is growing, the pace is slow, up about 10 percent year over year, based on the most current market numbers. Clearly, the forecasted explosive market growth has not materialized There are several reasons for this, but mostly, it's the result of two somewhat contradictory trends. First, while standards for security and QoS have finally materialized, adoption has been slow, both in terms of vendors adding these capabilities to products and among IT managers responsible for enabling new network services. Subtle client/device incompatibilities still dog the industry, and back-end integration challenges are substantial.

There's also the problem of investment protection. With a new breakthrough technology like 802.11n about to hit the market, nobody wants to make big investments in yesterday's standards unless they can deliver substantial short-term ROI. Upgrading to 802.11n won't be trivial so it's rational to hold off. We're still bullish on long-term prospects, and we still feel confident that Wi-Fi's role will become ever more critical.

Today, Wi-Fi is primarily a convenience, providing the same app services as Ethernet, but without a wire. But there's no killer app to speak of. Vo-Fi may emerge as the one--in fact, the impending growth of dual-mode cellular/Vo-Fi products is the most interesting development we'll track during 2007.

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