If you look at the innovation that’s happened in the Cisco wireless product line over the last eight years, a majority of it is driven from the needs of EDU’s. CleanAir – one of the undeniably huge differentiators (and still unmatched by others) has residential networking written all over it. Location-based Bonjour, AVC (application visibility and control), dynamic channel width in 5 GHz, flex radio in wave 2. Pretty much anything related to BYoD or IoT – it all starts in EDU.
In other words, if one thinks Cisco isn’t focused on education, then you’re not paying attention. As for market share, I tend to stick to data, and avoid sources that won’t back up their claim in writing. I’ve had vendors make all sorts of wild claims over the years (always the underdog) and when I ask them to put it in writing, the sales folk retreat and that’s the end of it. Dell’Oro is probably one of the best sources of data for wireless market share, but I’ve never seen a published breakdown for public sector/education. You’d think, if Aruba or other vendors were eating Cisco’s lunch in EDU that they'd be publishing those numbers left and right. When you’re the underdog, any data point that you can use to poke the eye of the #1 is gold. You can get some insight into spaces like K-12 given the e-rate program and financial reports. Cisco and Areohive appear to be the ones to beat in the k-12 space, in particular Areohive’s architecture has been really attractive in the K-12 sector, and Cisco’s Meraki which offers similar features has really taken flight there too. Meraki’s order run rate for FY2015 was $1 billion (it was only $200 million when Cisco purchased them in 2012). I wonder which sector all those Meraki sales are happening in…? On the other hand, Aruba appears to derive only about 13% of their revenue from K-12. That said, does any of the above matter? Like the endless Mac vs PC debates, for some it will always come down to something intangible like feelings. Macs are better BTW. ;) Jeff From: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, March 31, 2016 at 1:46 PM To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] NERCOMP Conference -- Wireless-LAN/NETMAN session summary Good point Bruce. A large campus at an educational institution has many challenges that would not be experienced by a corporate environment. I could be wrong, but I would also think that campus edu networks tend to be much larger in scale both in number of APS and number of devices connected. I have heard from other sources as well that Aruba is bigger in the education space, and it certainly could be that Cisco is more focused on the needs of the corporate market. Pete Morrissey From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Osborne, Bruce W (Network Services) Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2016 8:15 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] NERCOMP Conference -- Wireless-LAN/NETMAN session summary “While Aruba is #2, their market share and installed base is but a tiny fraction of Cisco’s,…” Here is an interesting counterpoint. There is a Wi-Fi vendor straw poll on this list. Current results list Aruba at 36% (59 votes) and Cisco at 35% (57 votes). To me, at least, that does not look like a distant second. Bruce Osborne Wireless Engineer IT Network Services - Wireless (434) 592-4229 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Training Champions for Christ since 1971 From: Jeffrey D. Sessler [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 11:46 AM Subject: Re: NERCOMP Conference -- Wireless-LAN/NETMAN session summary Bruce, so it stands to reason that the conversation here is going to be predominantly Cisco. If you are a customer of the #1 vendor you’ll likely be more open to discussing the pain points given management is unlikely to be concerned. If you have something else, then it may call into question the decision to go that direction. Right or wrong, that’s just how it sees to work. So sure, I don’t see Aruba customers debating their pain points here, but I do see Aruba cheerleading – especially from you. I’m in a fortunate position of having both in my consortium, and the Aruba folk have had to deal with a number of show stopping bugs over the years. So It’s not unique to Cisco, but the Cisco people seem more open to sharing – which to me is a good thing. Jeff From: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at 4:35 AM To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] NERCOMP Conference -- Wireless-LAN/NETMAN session summary Brian, Thank you for offending Lee. This is a WLAN list, not a *Cisco* WLAN list. Although there are many Aruba customers here, you do not see us debating the latest bugs, etc. Perhaps that is a compliment to Aruba’s Engineering & TAC Support teams. Bruce Osborne Wireless Engineer IT Network Services - Wireless (434) 592-4229 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Training Champions for Christ since 1971 From: Brian Helman [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 2:46 PM Subject: NERCOMP Conference -- Wireless-LAN/NETMAN session summary (cross-posted to NETMAN group) As promised, here is a summary of the combined Wireless-LAN/NETMAN session from the NERCOMP Conference last week. In preparation for these sessions, I review the hot topics (based purely on number of comments) from the listservs that occurred over the previous year. I keep a running PowerPoint on these topics (1 slide per year). I’m happy to post that PowerPoint, if there is a good place to do it. I believe DropBox has a bandwidth cap, so I’d prefer not to distribute that way. Also, I tend to avoid vendor-specific topics .. so you won’t see the billions of discussions on Cisco WAPs (sorry Lee). This year I tried to mix up the conversation a bit and gave a quick (10 minute) demonstration of the JDSU OLP-820p fiber scope/power meter. In the session I said I thought it was around $7,000 (give or take). I see it on Amazon for $5,132. While I don’t want to recommend specific products, I would recommend acquiring this unit or another that performs the same core functions. When I demo’d my JDSU with an old multimode ST connection we recently replaced, the comment “you still had light passing through that!?” says a lot. Overall, the session went well. There were 17 people (a good number for a small conference!) from 15 different institutions. Hot topics: · NAC just doesn’t want to go away. · There are still a large number of people who don’t know these lists exist · We did discuss vendors on the lists as well as other means of communication between members · Gaming networks · And wireless networking did dominate the discussions. Interestingly, of the 15 institutions, TEN (I had to type that to stress the point) were Aruba shops and only 1 Cisco shop. I’d have lost the farm on that bet. I hope both of these groups gained some members from the session. If I left out any topics, let me know! I will be at the Miami Connect next week. If you’ll be there and would like to talk Wireless/Networking, stop by the sessions or send me an email. I’m hoping to drop anchor in a local bar one night. If anyone has recommendations, let me know. I’d like to get an email out to these lists. We did this at the annual conference a couple nights and it was a lot of fun. Thanks, Brian ____________________________________ Brian Helman, M.Ed | Director, ITS/Networking Services | •:978.542.7272 Salem State University, 352 Lafayette St., Salem Massachusetts 01970 GPS: 42.502129, -70.894779 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
