Unstrung Insider Analyzes Enterprise Wireless LAN Prices

Unstrung Insider Analyzes Enterprise Wireless LAN Prices

New report considers price trends in enterprise-grade wireless equipment market

NEW YORK, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Wireless LAN switch products continue to command a price premium over standalone enterprise-grade access points, which have tumbled in value over the past six months, finds a new report released today by the subscription research service Unstrung Insider (http://www.unstrung.com/insider).

The Enterprise Wireless LAN Price Report includes detailed pricing data on 17 enterprise-grade, standalone access points, 10 appliance/gateway products, 35 wireless switch products, and 16 thin access points, from 18 different vendors.

"The wireless switch systems market has held up reasonably well, with average order size expected to increase steadily through 2005," says the report's author, Unstrung Insider Chief Analyst Gabriel Brown. "We don't expect street prices for wireless switches to decline dramatically this year.

"Orders of around $30,000 are seeing discounts of between 10 percent and 15 percent to list price, while orders worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars are seeing discounts of 30 percent to 35 percent," adds Brown. "It's not a fire-sale situation."

Among the report's key findings:

-- The street price for wireless switch systems ranges between $600 and
$800 per access point deployed.

-- Enterprise-grade a/g access points now carry an average list price of
$733 (vs. $840 six months ago). Street price hovers around $400 to $450.

-- Standalone access points are already "commodities"; expect prices to
plummet further.

-- Security appliance vendors have been driven out of town, squeezed by
switch vendors and low-cost newcomers.

-- Trapeze's MX-20 is one of the most competitively priced midsize
products, at between $580 and $824 (list) per AP deployed.

-- Aruba's pricing of optional software modules shows great potential for
the market, but will customers and other vendors follow?



Corporate access point vendors analyzed in this report: 3Com Corp. (NASDAQ:COMS); Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO); Enterasys Networks Inc. (NYSE:ETS); Foundry Networks Inc. (NASDAQ:FDRY); Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ); Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT); and Proxim Corp. (NASDAQ:PROX).

Appliance vendors featured in this report: Bluesocket Inc.; Fortress Technologies Inc.; SonicWall Inc. (NASDAQ:SNWL); and Cranite Systems Inc.

Wireless switch/controller vendors featured in this report: Airespace Inc.; Aruba Wireless Networks; Chantry Networks Inc.; Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO); Extreme Networks Inc. (NASDAQ:EXTR); Foundry Networks Inc. (NASDAQ:FDRY); Meru Networks Inc.; Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT); Symbol Technologies Inc. (NYSE:SBL); and Trapeze Networks Inc.

The Enterprise Wireless LAN Price Report is available as part of an annual subscription (12 monthly issues) to Unstrung Insider, priced at $1,350. Individual reports are available for $900. To subscribe, please visit: http://www.unstrung.com/insider.

For additional information, to request a free executive summary of the report, or for details of multi-user licensing options, please contact:

Jeff Claudino
Sales Manager
Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
claudino@lightreading.com

Members of the media may request review copies from:

Gabriel Brown
Chief Analyst
Insider Research Services
44-20-7701-9330
brown@unstrung.com


Source: Unstrung Insider

CONTACT: Jeff Claudino, Sales Manager, Insider Research Services,
+1-619-229-9940, claudino@lightreading.com; or to request review copies -
Gabriel Brown, Chief Analyst, Insider Research Services, +44-20-7701-9330,
brown@unstrung.com

Web site: http://www.unstrung.com/insider


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