3Com Takes Enterprise Wi-Fi Products Worldwide
Just days after news broke that it would be acquired by HP, 3Com introduced in the U.S. a line of enterprise Wi-Fi gear. The products, from 3Com's China-based unit, H3C, encompass everything from wireless LAN access points to specially designed blades for H3C's high-end data center switches, and an overarching management application.
Wed, November 25, 2009
Network World — Just days after news broke that it would be acquired by HP, 3Com introduced in the U.S. a line of enterprise Wi-Fi gear. The products, from 3Com's China-based unit, H3C, encompass everything from wireless LAN access points to specially designed blades for H3C's high-end data center switches, and an overarching management application.
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3Com is touting what it calls the "Unified Network Access" products as creating a network edge that can intelligently handle both wired and wireless clients, integrates more tightly than rivals with the back-end switch fabric, and is priced about 25% lower than Wi-Fi products from Cisco and Aruba.
But there is one big question mark looming over this news: when HP acquired 3Com, it already had an enterprise Wi-Fi product line, based on HP's 2008 buy-out of Colubris, which replaced HP's reliance on rebranded Motorola WLAN gear. 3Com for its part had a long-standing Wi-Fi OEM relationship with Trapeze Networks. Neither 3Com nor HP has yet said what HP's Wi-Fi strategy will be once the merger finalizes.
The new equipment is the fruit of 3Com's joint-venture with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, China's leading telecom and networking company, through which 3Com wanted to reclaim a space in high-end enterprise switching. 3Com bought out the joint venture in late 2006. The H3C Wi-Fi products have been available in China for the past year, but are now being introduced worldwide, including the U.S. They're aimed at even the biggest enterprise Wi-Fi deployments, a market that's expected to heat up as more enterprises adopt high-throughput 802.11n gear, and deploy it for wall-to-wall Wi-Fi.
The H3C Wi-Fi products are:
- WA line of access points for indoors, for industrial deployments requiring rugged designs, and outdoor; they include 1- and 2-radio devices, available for 802.11ag networks only or for more expensive 802.11agn networks. The 11n products support either 2 or 3 data streams, usually described as 2x2 or 3x3 multiple input multiple output (MIMO).
- WX wireless controllers available as conventional standalone products, for up to 64 or 256 access points; a set of "unified switches" designed for branch offices, able to support wired clients or up to 8-, 24-, or 48-port access points; and two high-end boards that slot into the H3C core switches, with one board for up to 640 access points for the S7500E switch available now, and a second, for up to 256 access points, to be available for the S5800 switch by year's end.
