Nortel Networks recently announced its “Unwired Enterprise” vision, and will be rolling-out with its next-generation wireless LAN portfolio by the second half of next year.
The new strategy for the Toronto-based enterprise network and global service provider encompasses three main areas: increased wireless capacity, performance and coverage with wireless LAN products that will support the 802.11n standard featuring MIMO/OFDM technology, and simplification of the network and to create universal mobility across other wireless networks. While the vision is geared towards benefiting enterprises, Nortel said its vision will not be successful unless it has the help and support of its service providers as well.
Kyle Klassen, director of enterprise wireless marketing at Nortel, believes this new vision holds an abundance of promising opportunities for its partners.
“There’s a huge opportunity with solutions and services for our resellers and integrators,” Klassen said. “With a combination of our vision and product portfolio, resellers and integrators can further expand their opportunities to help deliver solutions.”
Also launching towards the latter half of next year is Nortel’s next-generation wireless LAN solution product portfolio, which will offer improved security and management consolidation capabilities. The portfolio will support 802.11a/b/g/n standards and will also be able to support a variety of configurations that will allow for more flexibility when these solutions are being deployed.
One of Nortel’s main goals when designing this new portfolio was to ensure that the network remains simplified.
“To date, most enterprises have deployed the wireless solution as an overlay to their existing wireless network structure,” Klassen said. “We’re integrating these together into one system and one infrastructure so you only need to deploy one product instead of two. This will not only remove any complexities, but it will lower the total cost of ownership.”
Alex Pares, a research analyst for network equipment at IDC, believes not enough people truly understand the advantages of using wireless LAN solutions.
“People are using [wireless LAN] as a secondary option,” Pares said. “Because of this, they [don’t understand] the benefits.”
Klassen on the other hand, remains optimistic.
“It’s a way for businesses to transform using wireless technology,” he said. “We want users to adopt and embrace wireless as the predominant way to access the network, whether it’s from inside or outside of the office.”
According to Klassen, channel partners will be interested in working alongside of Nortel and adding these solutions to their portfolio because of potential growth opportunities.
“I expect our existing channel partners will be interested in developing relationships with us and end users because now they can grow and expand with us and our solutions,” Klassen said.
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