Battle won, even before the first shot is fired.
Early in the life of the technology, industry analysts and players already regard Cisco Systems Inc. as the big tree in the wireless local area network jungle.
Leveraging its channels and products in the wired market, Cisco cemented that dominance with the recent acquisition of Linksys, a leader in the small office/home office space, otherwise called SOHO.
This brings the vendor to the top of not only the SOHO market, but also big enterprises and carriers, according to market watchers.
“The acquisition signals its continued success not only with repeat customers, but also with lifetime customers in the space,” commented Fritz Jordan, analyst with MobileTrax. “As the pie grows bigger, their business gets bigger.”
It lies in the wide net of Cisco’s channels, remarked Ed Rerisi, director of research at Allied Business Intelligence.
“The question is who has such a wide distribution network like Cisco?” he asked.
Companies in the wireless access point and switching space include Proxim, NetGear, D-Link, Nortel Networks Ltd., Symbol, Trapeze, Extreme Networks and Juniper.
Cisco’s strategy takes two approaches. The first is the enterprise campus focus with thousands of access points, while the second approach remotely manages access points. The company also has identified what it describes as the four pillars of its strategy, which include security, ease of deployment, management and scalability.
The networking company also has upgraded its Aironet 1100 and 1200 access points with its CiscoWorks WSLE 2.0, which supports up to 2,500 APs.
But one of Cisco’s cardinal offerings is its Cisco-compatible extensions, which it licenses to companies that make embedded and stand-alone WLAN designs like Broadcom Corp., Intersil, Intel Corp., Agere Systems, Atheros, Atmel, Marvell and Texas Instruments Inc.
The company’s products are so widespread that other players will find it hard to contend, said Harry Simpson, senior vice president, marketing and business development for Roving Planet, which delivers a WLAN management, control and integration platform and uses Cisco as its channels.
Rerisi thinks that for all of Cisco’s premier position, its Linksys acquisition may create a pitfall.
“Although the acquisition gives Cisco a broader product portfolio, it needs to keep Linksys products distinct from its (Cisco’s) other portfolio and retain control of the SOHO market.”
Other companies will be “waiting for Linksys to hiccup,” to make inroads into that market, Rerisi said. In addition, the Linksys brand is familiar to professionals, and Cisco should be careful not to tarnish it, he noted.
Jordan, however, believes that the networking company has its finger on the market pulse and so is unlikely to make any strategic miscues.
“They have the top management in all of telecom,” remarked Jordan. “You can’t look beyond management for answers.”
He explained that for other WLAN players, the technology does not have a strong base in wired activities. But Cisco enjoys that.
“Other players can make themselves great, but they cannot threaten Cisco,” he said.
Cisco’s strength also comes from its ability to take advantage of an 802.1x competitive loophole in the WPA authentication protocol, which made it possible for it to create LEAP from the encapsulation authentication protocol, otherwise known as EAP. The protocol also allows for an unspecified authentication server.
“You can’t blame Cisco for that,” Jordan said. “It took advantage of a competitive opportunity.”
