Wireless sales set to turn up the volume
UK resellers will benefit from predicted growth of WLANs
The wireless LAN (WLAN) market will be worth more than $1.3bn by 2006, twice its value in 2002, which bodes well for both vendors and resellers.
Predictions from analyst Datamonitor state sales in Asia-Pacific will grow the fastest, followed by the US and European markets.
Tim Gower, Datamonitor senior analyst and the report's author, said: "Vendors will see channel partners as a more realistic way of getting WLAN products to market.
"The increasing acceptance of 802.11 security standards means a lot of enterprises will include wireless capabilities as standard as they upgrade their laptops."
The report said the convergence of voice and data networks will also boost the value of WLANs deployed by enterprises for accessing corporate networks with laptops and PDAs.
Nathan Marke, marketing director at networking reseller Prime Business Solutions, said: "We have seen a big uptake in WLANs during the past 12 months. The technology is becoming ubiquitous but is best sold with a vertical focus."
Datamonitor sees education, healthcare and financial services as big markets for the technology.
Gower said: "Manufacturing is likely to remain the largest UK market, but the channel will be key in the use of PDAs for patient care in private healthcare organisations, for example."
He added that VARs could also "get into specific processes", such as wireless enabling of supply chain management.
The ease-of-use and installation of wireless technology also makes it easy for resellers to offer the technology without having to address a specific problem.
Marke said: "It is much more sensible to put in a WLAN overlay now, even if you don't intend to use it straight away."