Atmosphere '23 APJ: HPE Aruba Networking "doubling down" on SMB

HPE Aruba Networking has grown its SMB product portfolio while talking up the opportunity it sees for partners in the SMB market at its Atmosphere ’23 APJ event in Bali.

At the event the vendor announced the new Aruba Instant On AP22D Wi-Fi 6 access point and Aruba Instant On 1960 stackable switch with 2.5GB port capacity.

The new products came with the comment by the VP and GM of HPE Aruba Networking global small and medium business, Amol Mitra, that the company is “doubling down” on its SMB business.

Aruba’s pitch when it introduced its wireless Instant On offering four years ago was bringing “enterprise grade” networking to small businesses.

Since then, more networking devices and greater use of video conferencing have driven SMB network upgrades, according to Mitra. “The number of end devices is growing. The cloud data explosion is happening [and there is more] video streaming coming out of COVID,” he noted.

SMBs are looking to move to cloud-based networking environments for flexibility and ease of management, and to Wi-Fi 6 for performance, Mitra said.

HPE Aruba Networking wants partners to see it as one-stop shop for SMB networking, including the access points and switching and management platform, with new features and automation delivered by the cloud without the need for separate platforms.

“We have no licenses. We have no subscriptions. We have nothing we go back to the customer for if they want to enable certain features or drive better functionality. It’s all built in,” Mitra said. “And if you look at our competitors in the marketplace, this is a huge differentiation,” he claimed.

Simple setup and security are also selling points. “We've taken the hardened security capability we have in our enterprise portfolio and built it in to the SMB portfolio,” Mitra said. “Anything which we get on the enterprise side from a security hardened security capability is available on this portfolio.”

Mitra noted that small businesses have grown increasingly comfortable with bypassing the channel to buy and deploy products. He noted that was an opportunity for channel partners to establish their own web stores, if they haven’t already.

Services also remain an opportunity pushed by Aruba and Cisco.

Aruba is working on “standardised and repeatable” Network as a Service offers for partners to take to market, Phil Mottram reiterated this week in Bali. NaaS involves customers paying a monthly fee or paying per usage, with a services provider providing and managing the equipment and network.

“There's pros and cons [to NaaS],” noted Mitra, “because there's a security issue if you outsource it to somebody else and if you don't control it there's data privacy issues. So, all that needs to be managed.”

Last year, Cisco launched its Partner Deal Express program to help partners get quotes out faster.  

SMB was one of the fastest growing segments for Cisco in 2022, off a small market share.

CRN Australia travelled to HPE Aruba Networking Atmosphere ’23 APJ in Bali as a guest of HPE Aruba Networking.