The move sees Cisco buy into a growing market, wireless LAN switches, that the company has often claimed is built upon a flawed architectural concept.
The company said it will bring Airespace, based in nearby San Jose, into its Data Center, Switching and Wireless Technology Group, led by senior VP Luca Cafiero.
Three-and-a-half-year-old Airespace makes wireless switches built around the idea of one smart central switch managing multiple relatively dumb thin access points.
Cisco, by contrast, has been pushing an architecture, with its Aironet access points and SWAN framework, of smarter fat access points, aided by its Catalyst switches.
It’s been something of a philosophical war, with vendors including Cisco claiming the fat model is more flexible, and others saying slim is easier and cheaper to manage.
Introducing its Wireless LAN Service Module for the Catalyst last May, a move interpreted as Cisco’s acknowledgement of the likes of Airespace, Cisco stuck to its guns.
At that time, the company told ComputerWire the WLSM upgrade was not a vindication of wireless switches or anything like that.
Announcing the acquisition, Cisco said: In the near term, Cisco will continue to offer and support both the existing Cisco Structured Wireless-Aware Network framework (SWAN) and Airespace product lines.
What happens beyond the near-term is not yet clear, but $450 million would be a sizeable chunk of cash to splash out on something the company intends to phase out.
Cisco said that it is also interested in Airespace’s security software, which includes wireless intrusion detection systems. Wireless and security are key Cisco growth areas.
Airespace, funded to the tune of $58 million in four rounds, struck a deal with IBM Corp last September that was seen as a blow to Cisco, which counts IBM as large customer.
Under the deal, Airespace would be allowed to sell its products into some big IBM corporate accounts. At the time, IBM cited Airespace’s security features as a deal-winner.
Airespace will also give Cisco a way to strengthen its WLAN presence in the midmarket, where the firm’s portfolio has been weak to date.
Its existing Aironet products can be used in smaller networks and in very large networks when deployed with WLSM, which is a blade for Cisco’s high-end Catalyst 6500 switches.
