Juniper Networks, the second largest maker of computer networking equipment, announced Tuesday that it is buying wireless LAN vendor Trapeze Networks in an all cash transaction valued at approximately $152 million. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2010.
Juniper is buying Trapeze from its parent Belden, which bought the company for $133 million in June 2008. Trapeze helped develop the “wireless LAN switch” concept for managing access points.
“The deal makes abundant sense given Juniper’s current lack of a wireless LAN strategy,” said Jason Ader, an analyst at William Blair in Boston.
The acquisition will make WLAN infrastructure a key part of Juniper’s portfolio, accelerating the company’s growth in the enterprise market. Juniper will now compete with Cisco and Aruba Networks in the enterprise WLAN space, notes Light Reading.
While Aruba Networks, Cisco, Meru Networks and Ruckus Wireless use controllers to monitor Wi-Fi access points, Aerohive Networks, introduced a new class of wireless infrastructure equipment called a Cooperative Control Access Point.
Their system combines enterprise-class access points with a suite of cooperative control protocols to provide the benefits of a controller, without the controller. Two local users can connect directly instead of going through the controller, reducing the overhead.
Meraki says their new enterprise-class solutions offer managed network features without the cost or complexity of traditional solutions. They’re designed for offices of any size, educational institutions, retailers and industrial firms.
Each AP on a Meraki network continually monitors its environment for interference and feeds this information back to the Cloud Controller. AutoRF performs automatic system-wide network optimization while management is cloud-based.
A recent report by Dell’Oro Group estimates that the enterprise WLAN technology market will grow from $2.2 billion in 2010 to $3.4 billion in 2014. As the fastest growing Ethernet switching provider in 2010, Juniper now adds Trapeze’s WLAN products to Juniper’s routing, security and switching gear.
