Lan market braces itself for fallout

HP executive predicts turbulence in market in 2004

There is more fallout to come in the managed wireless Lan market next year, according to a Hewlett Packard executive.

"There are more start-ups out there than will survive," said Brice Clark, worldwide director of strategic planning at HP's ProCurve networking business.

"Customers are sensitive about the companies they buy from and vendors have to prove they can survive. Some vendors have developed proprietary solutions."

Many of the established vendors side-step this issue by sourcing products from vendors such as Proxim. HP's 700 series internal access controller caters for a large number of other access points and secures connections using virtual private networks.

Further fallout will come from a disappointing take-up of Wi-Fi by enterprises, Clark claimed.

"The uptake of wireless Lans in the industry was overestimated. Enterprise users are concerned with things such as security, management and helpdesk support," he said.

Clark also predicted Power over Ethernet (PoE) and Gigabit Ethernet connections to the edge of the network as potential growth areas for resellers.

Ashley Snelling, managing director of HP reseller ADA, agreed. "Most people are using Gigabit for aggregation. Few are deploying it to the desktop yet, but that will change," he said.

HP has claimed second place in managed switch port sales in EMEA. Clark claimed the company shipped a million Layer 3 ports in Q2 this year and expects figures to show a 50 per cent increase on that number in Q3.