Q&A With Ruckus' President And CEO Selina Lo

Selina Lo is the feisty, passionate, M&M-chomping president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless and, thanks to the growth Ruckus has posted since its 2004 founding -- Gartner and IDC both ranked it the fastest- growing wireless LAN vendor by revenue in 2009 -- she's a force to be reckoned with. The crowded wireless LAN space doesn't scare her, and neither do its incumbent players. Lo sat down with CRN Networking Editor Chad Berndtson at Ruckus' Big Dogs conference in Atlanta. Following are excerpts of their conversation:

CRN: You've got a growing, supportive and actively engaged channel, and business is also growing in every one of your segments. What is your biggest challenge right now?

Lo: I think the big challenge is to really break out. The Wi-Fi market is huge, so everybody can survive, and if you look at Meru and our other competitors, when the tide goes up, all the boats lift. I think if we just want to have built a nice business, we would be fine just treading water. But you know? I'm greedy. I want market share. The key thing for us in grabbing market share in a very crowded space like enterprise wireless LAN is to not only do well by our partners, but also sign up partners and develop the right class of premium partners, and really help them get to a significant, multimillion-a-year business with us. Another piece is the carriers, which have significant muscle, and have a brand that in the bigger Fortune 1000 companies is very powerful. I think they will become an important piece of our delivery chain.

What's going on now is that the carriers can look at new business and can't just count on voice, and can't just count on how they've historically generated revenue. They're all looking at enterprise, and I think that may compete with some of our existing channel partners, but in the big scheme of things, it's a good thing. A lot of the carriers, especially the tier-one carriers, they don't have the resources to do a hotel, or a school.

CRN: But you do acknowledge that by going that route, you naturally invite some conflict in your channel. What do you say to the service-oriented VARs to mitigate their fears about losing business to carriers?

Lo: Well, forget that they're carriers. When you grow, in any channel, some of your closest partners are not going to like the fact that you are bringing in more partners. Just like all good channel practices, the ability to do that without hurting your existing partners is critical. Having the strongest formal processes like deal reg, things like how you handle leads and how basically you help them continue to trust you, that's being a channel company. But on top of that, I think, we need to help our channel see that these carriers can be partners.

CRN: If you're ripe to be gaining market share, and are going to continue to grow at the CAGR levels we've seen, who are you taking share from?

Lo: It's interesting. I don't stand around and pound my chest and say Cisco, but the reality is that Cisco had been losing share. IDC and Gartner both show that Cisco has lost more than 10 points over the last couple of quarters in wireless. A lot of people can benefit from that. I think HP is another one that's potentially in a bit of turmoil because of what's happening from the Huawei-3Com integration. There's a chaotic situation in there we can take advantage of. And Motorola, with its company breaking into pieces, there can be some gap that we can take advantage of, too.

CRN: Will you look to be acquired?

Lo: Acquisition is something ... well, basically that you don't look for ...

CRN: Is it something you're open to?

Lo: It's like dating. It takes two parties. If you're looking for a dating partner, it takes attention away from what you're doing. And suitors want to go after the right price for them, so if you are searching for a suitor, you may not be at the right space at the bargaining table. But on top of that, really, if you build companies looking for them to be acquired, you may put your focus on the wrong things. Ruckus is never about looking for an acquirer. Give us a number we can't refuse? Of course we will do the right thing. But it occupies very little mind share now.