Aerohive Buzzing About The New World In WLAN


Company:

Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.

Technology Sector: Networking

Key Product: HiveAP 300 Series 802.11n Cooperative Control Access Point

Year Founded: 2006

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

Number of Channel Partners: 145 (75 in North America, 70 abroad)

Ideal Channel Partner: Enterprise-focused solution provider

Why You Should Care: Aerohive sees a golden opportunity for its low-cost, flexible products thanks to a perfect storm: the move of wireless LANs from luxury to necessity in recent years, the arrival of infrastructure-savvy solution providers developing true wireless practices, and the promise of cloud computing to make wireless VARs reap big returns on managed services opportunities.

The Lowdown: Aerohive has been an emerging player in the wireless LAN segment for a few years now, but its executives see 2010 as a golden opportunity for channel expansion, thanks to such trends as the ratification of the 802.11n wireless standard, the move toward cloud-deployed managed services in wireless and the emergence of the midmarket as a big wireless opportunity.

Aerohive, which was founded by a group of former NetScreen Technologies executives, first appeared on the channel radar in 2007 with what it calls "cooperative control architecture." One goal of that architecture, on which most of Aerohive's products are designed, is to offer customers the ability to deploy 11n access points without having to add or upgrade their existing WLAN controllers, thus making migration from legacy infrastructure that much easier.

HiveAP 300 Series 802.11n Access Point

As WLAN deployments become not only more common but also more affordable, Aerohive has begun to push down from its enterprise base and target the midmarket for new opportunities. It's urging many of its VARs -- Aerohive is 100 percent channel -- to do the same, as well as embrace the WLAN opportunity in vertical markets like health care and education, and in managed services.

"The market is changing rapidly," said Stephen Philip, Aerohive's vice president of corporate and product marketing. "Wi-Fi has gone from a convenience to a secure, mission-critical replacement for Ethernet, and that's changing the dynamics of everything. Most resellers don't have one type of customer and most of ours are dedicated to a complete range of customers. The solutions today are trying to solve a different set of problems, thanks to the bandwidth requirements of 11n, the explosion of cloud, the economics. This is just not a guest network anymore. It can't go down. Our architecture is designed with that in mind."

Cary Kosher, Aerohive's vice president of sales for the Americas, said that about 10 percent of Aerohive's channel base has a true managed services offering in their practices.

He sees that number growing as more partners get hip to Aerohive's HiveManager Network Management System and other services-oriented (including virtual) tools and can better articulate the cost and flexibility benefits of Aerohive deployments to end users who might have gone with Cisco or Aruba wireless gear in the past.

"Because of our simplicity as far as approach and pricing advantage, I think the resellers are finding incremental business and finding it nice that we deliver enterprise-level feature sets to large and small customers," Kosher said. "They're able to take us into accounts that previously wanted wireless but can't support the cost structure of Cisco or Aruba. They're opening new lines of revenue in those midrange accounts."

Kosher said Aerohive will be rolling out a new partner structure this spring that will offer tiered levels of partnership as in a traditional VAR program. The company will continue to invest in channel sales team members, as well, and is also on the hunt for director of channel sales and programs who will succeed Kosher as Aerohive's channel chief.

"There are a lot of partners out there who are prepared to make big commitments to Aerohive," he said. "Others may be just starting out and looking for an entry point with our products. There are different customers and different business sizes we appeal to now, and we need a program that addresses all of these things."