Embedded Wi-Fi and wireless switching promise to further facilitate business WLAN growth - Market Intelligence

Mobile Internet, The, August, 2003

Intel's aggressive push of Centrino on the client side and the emergence of wireless switching on the infrastructure side are the two major forces transforming the business Wi-Fi market in 2003, reports In-Stat/MDR (http://www.instat.com). The high-tech market research firm expects that 16 million notebook PCs with embedded Wi-Fi will ship to businesses this year, and that by 2005, Wi-Fi will be included in 95 percent of notebooks as a standard feature.

In-Stat/MDR also found that:

--With 95 percent of notebook PC unit shipments in 2005 including Wi-Fi as a standard feature, the extra cost of a Wi-Fi client will be essentially transparent to the end-user.

--Cisco currently dominates the enterprise AP market, and currently supports an intelligent AP infrastructure. Cisco has an interest in being able to support and build upon its installed base, and so the company may be evaluating solutions from a handful of vendors that are developing technology designed to significantly increase performance of today's standard AP. Many of these companies, such as Bandspeed and Airgo, are relying on smart antenna technology to bolster an AP's performance, coverage, capacity and throughput capabilities.

--With chipmakers Atheros, TI, Broadcom, Intersil (now GlobespanVirata), and others focusing on a/g solutions, and Intel promising to roll out a dual-mode mini-PCI in Centrino by year-end 2003, the dual-mode concept has become king. Both dual-mode clients, and dual-mode capable APs, are shipping out in growing quantities, squashing 802.11 a-only equipment.

The report, "The Wi-Fi Field of Dreams: If You Embed Wi-Fi, Infrastructure will Come" (#IN030809LN), includes five-year forecasts of the worldwide total WLAN equipment market. The "WLAN" market in this report includes Wi-Fi equipment, i.e. 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g and dual band 2.4/5 GHz products. Wi-Fi market forecasts are included, by technology and equipment type, for the business market. In-Stat/MDR believes the WLAN Market's main measurable components include Network Interface Cards (NICs) and infrastructure equipment. This report gauges the size of the current market, and provides forecasts for the future, based on products shipped and end-use sales of these two major product components. To purchase this report, or for more information, please visit: http://www.instat.com/catalog/Ncatalogue.asp?ID=138. or contact Courtney McEuen at 480.609.4533; cmceuen@reedbusiness.com.