Infinigate signs AirTight after four-year chase

Distributor says new signing can act as security overlay for Ruckus Wireless deals

Infinigate has landed UK and European distribution rights for AirTight Networks following a four-year pursuit of the wireless intrusion prevention vendor.

Talking to CRN, Alex Teh, joint managing director of Infinigate UK, claimed AirTight's technology can act as a security overlay for existing and prospective projects involving another of Infinigate's vendor partners, wireless LAN outfit Ruckus.

The UK, where AirTight previously had a sole-distributor partnership with e92plus, will be the first country activated under the pan-European deal.

"We are very excited about this because we've been trying to work with them for no less than four years," Teh said.

Teh talked up AirTight and Ruckus as the "most secure cloud-managed Wi-Fi solution" and "best access point radio technology" in the market today, respectively.

"We have more than 100 buying partners on wireless technology today and they are predominantly based on Ruckus," he said. "There's a tremendous opportunity for us to go back into the Ruckus reseller base and provide a security overlay into implementations they have done."

The global wireless LAN market grew five per cent year on year in Q2, according to recent figures from Dell'Oro, with Cisco accounting for nearly half the enterprise segment of the market. HP's share approached 20 per cent and Ruckus was third on nearly seven per cent, the analyst said.

Mukesh Gupta, managing director of e92plus, said it was logical that AirTight has moved to bolster its European distribution strategy in the wake of the arrival of a new CEO, CMO and sale boss over the summer.

"In Europe, we were the only territory doing business; there was next to nothing coming out of France and Germany, so AirTight had to change something," he said.

"We have done well with the product so far but there's room for AirTight to capture more marketshare and it needs more resources to do that."

Teh argued the 20-30 UK resellers AirTight currently has, which he said include Softcat, Blue Cube and Evolve Secure Solutions, is "too few for a technology like this". Infinigate will offer resellers free Wi-Fi surveys, "vendor-quality" demos and training, he added.

Paul Gracie, vice president of EMEA for AirTight, said: "We are looking to expand our presence in the UK and across Europe so have signed an agreement at a group level with Infinigate. We see them as a true value-added distributor and they will bring a lot of value to the AirTight solution as we continue to expand."