inTechnology partners Singapore hotspot gear provider

Melbourne-based distributor inTechnology has signed Singapore-based wireless provider Advanced Network Technology Laboratories (ANTlabs) with a view to building on its current 802.1x security portfolio.

Mark Winter, sales and marketing director at inTechnology, said the long-term aim was to open more doors into wireless technology for VARs and other resellers. inTechnology viewed ANTlabs boxes as helping VARs add services to security software sales targeting wireless needs.

'Wireless is here to stay,' he said. 'Now, with 802.1x authentication at hotspot locations [you can use] both the 802.1x Funk Software Odyssey client in the front end and the Odyssey server or Funk Software Steel Belted Radius in the back end.'

Winter said he expected such offerings to prove popular with hotspot operators, education institutions, government departments and within the corporate environment.

'Also, the ANTlabs solution allows users to walk up to a hotspot, open an internet browser and get connectivity without having to reconfigure anything on their laptops or PDAs,' he said.

Winter said inTechnology was 'very focused' on Radius server software. Adding ANTlabs would enable the distributor to offer a more complete 'solution' around Radius timed to take advantage of current demand for both wireless and wired broadband, he said. 'This is a zero-configuration solution – [something] that we see a lot of telcos and corporates now looking for,'he said.

ANTlabs' boxes – which varied in price from $4000 to about $140,000 -- only had a few competitors in the Australian market, including companies such as SolutionIP, Nomadix and IP3, he said.

'We have forecasted and envisage that we will see in excess of 150 to 200 deployments within the next 12 months in Australia & New Zealand,' Winter added.

Meanwhile, inTechnology and ANTlabs would work together to seal deals via their mutual reseller channel.

Aw Peng Soon, sales director at ANTlabs, said ANTlabs had always worked with the channel in Australia but that had previously been managed from Singapore. Bringing InTechnology on board meant fulfilling both resellers' and end-users' needs should get easier, he said.

'ANTlabs is committed to provide the best-of-breed value-added solutions to our potential customers for public access over broadband wireline and wireless, and for corporate networks.  We believe that with inTechnology, we can deliver this effectively to the channel and end users,' Aw said.

'We are working closely with ANTlabs on pending deals alongside some of the existing resellers of the ANTlabs solutions,' Winter added.

inTechnology plans to show ANTlabs and Funk Software together at Information Security World in Sydney late next month. 'inTechnology will be providing a wireless hotspot using ANTlabs ezXcess

Server Zero-Configuration solution and Funk Software 802.1x WLAN security. Solutions authenticating to Funk's AAA/Radius server,' Winter said.

ANTlabs claims 100 percent market-share with Singapore telcos and partnered Sydney company SkyNetGlobal to launch WLAN public access networking at McDonald's Singapore.