Ruckus Wireless launches secure plug-and-play WLAN for SMEs

Ruckus Wireless has launched a new array of wireless LAN products aimed at small businesses that it claims blends the best of both consumer and enterprise worlds to deliver a solution that is secure, cost-effective, easy to use and can be deployed in less than five minutes.

The new ZoneFlex family, which consists of multimedia access points, a smart Wi-Fi control system and the FlexMaster remote management system will be available from next month in the UK starting at £131.

Many players have tried to push consumer versions of this technology or scaled down versions of enterprise offerings on users, but neither of these meet the needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), who still demand high performance but without the need for dedicated IT staff, according to David Callisch, the company's marketing director.

"Lots of companies have tried to downscale but none have been successful, not even Cisco, as they haven't delivered two things: power and simplicity at an affordable price," he said.

Callisch added: "At the low end you have companies that are not technology innovators, they're just branding and executing. Then at the high end you have the Fortune 500, so you're left with the unfortunate 5,000 trying to figure out what to do.

"It's about working out what's enough, what SMEs need. They don't need a firewall in a box, so we don't try to sell it to them. It's got to be brain dead simple as most companies have one or two IT guys, if that, who are already overwhelmed.

Ruckus has already had success with its access point offerings in the consumer world, with more than a million standalone installations, so it has evolved that experience and tailored its product for the smaller end of the corporate world.

Fewer access points are required and the company's BeamFlex technology also ensures that dead spots are eliminated and Wi-Fi connectivity range extended so that SMEs get the best performance for their purchase.

Each access point makes use of a 12-element, dual-polarised BeamFlex

antenna array, which is capable of forming more than 4,000 unique antenna beams.

"[BeamFlex] is a bit like entering a dark room with a flashlight as opposed to turning the light on: I can control the beams and they're much more powerful," said Callisch.

"We're also a good neighbour in the fact that the beam doesn't affect other people so SMEs can use a smaller number of access points to do more."

Analysts have welcomed the new market entrant with optimism.

"It's ironic that Wi-Fi - a technology popularised by its ease of use -

has been made so difficult to implement within the small business context,"

said Craig Mathias, principal analyst at the Farpoint Group.

"These companies [smaller businesses] don't have the time or money to implement a full blown enterprise- class system but still need something robust enough to handle

more than causal data access. Ruckus Wireless is uniquely solving this problem."

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