Is there money in WiFi? Ruckus thinks so

Silicon Valley networking company Ruckus has signed on Australian distributor inTechnology to pursue opportunities in the local wi-fi market.

Ruckus Australia general manager Carl Jefferys told CRN that demand was robust in the key verticals of telecommunications, education, hospitality, aged care and security. He hoped inTechnology’s 300 Australian resellers would help Rukus take the lead in those markets.

inTechnology joins LAN1 as Ruckus’s other major distribution partner in Australia.

According to inTechnology group managing director Mark Winter, the deal was an important opportunity for its resellers to develop better networking solutions and increase sales.

“The choice to add Ruckus to our existing wireless technology portfolio is to provide our partners with some extremely competitive cross selling opportunities, and the ability for our partners to increase both their product and services revenue,” he said.

“In the past, our focus has been education; however with the addition of Ruckus, this opens up new and broad market segments for us, our partners and the vendors we represent.” This included more opportunities in the enterprise. 

Ruckus boasts that its ZoneFlex system is the only wireless LAN (WLAN) solution that combines adaptive antenna technology with wi-fi meshing. Jefferys said this enabled voice, data and video to be routed around corners - an important capability in physically large sites such as schools, hospitals and high-density, multi-story office environments.

The technology also allowed for applications around real-time location and RFID.

Jeffreys said Ruckus would soon announce the results of an Australian tender with a large hotel chain, with three out of the four submissions made coming from Ruckus resellers.

Ruckus and inTech have an existing relationship developing network solutions for the education market. Demand for wi-fi technology has always been strong in the sector, however the uptake of technology such as IPTV and video conferencing was expected to drive sales even further with its ability to stream content between different locations and devices.

The uptake of technology such as video conferencing and mainstream IPTV services from the likes of Telstra and iiNET would also boost sales. More than 300 telecommunications carriers from around the world use Ruckus technology.

Jeffreys admitted that while the 802.11n wi-fi protocol marked a significant improvement in security, organisations with highly sensitive data repositories remained leery of the technology. 

In this respect, Ruckus hoped to further differentiate itself in the market with its patented Dynamic PSK (pre-shared key), which allowed network administrators to deploy a 63-character code.

Ruckus expected to have more money to invest in product development when it completes its IPO, due to occur on either NASDAQ or the NYSE towards the end of this year.