There is quite a bit that goes on in the industry that most people who aren’t on the vendor/supply side ever see. Stuff that is not unique to one industry or another, but definitely exists in the wireless LAN industry.
High tech is competitive, very competitive. That’s not a revelation to anybody, I know. But what most don’t know is what happens behind the scenes of a competitive bidding situation for a network implementation. On one side of the table you have the customer, like most of the readers out there, who has a project that they’re trying to build out. An infrastructure they envision satisfying the needs of their users and help the business be more productive.
On the other side of the table, the vendors’ sales team. Nice folks, usually well dressed and presentable, trained and passionate about their products. We, the vendors, hire them because we believe they are the best at what they do and can help us break into markets and customers we couldn’t get to without them. These guys are competitive and they are on the front lines for us vendors. They are there to educate the customers on our (the vendors’) solutions and help create the network implementations that will satisfy the customers’ requirements and fulfill their best laid plan (if you’ve ever implemented a network, you’ll understand that literary reference 
). At the end of the day, the vendor you select is not just a vendor, they’re your partner and your success hinges on their success. You better TRUST that vendor…that partner or your next review/raise/bonus/whatever might not be what you were hoping.
That brings me to an announcement by Xirrus that was both surprising and not surprising…
Xirrus today laid bare a sales tactic by Aruba Networks. Its pretty typical to inform your sales people, warn them really, when a competitor might try to muddy the water for you. What’s not typical is to consistently drop (mis)information about your competitor, regardless of who that competitor is, to the customers or for that competitor (in this case Xirrus) to lay out what was given to a customer in a competitive situation for the public and invite public comment. I have to give them credit for such a bold move – the information wasn’t on an obscure blog, Xirrus released it to the news wire services. It was only a matter of time something like this happened as this is a social media world and information on questionable tactics get laid bare seemingly everyday. The only problem with Xirrus’ move was that there isn’t a way to comment; they put it out as a press release not there isn’t any way to comment or for Aruba to comment. Its akin to flipping someone the bird from your car as they exit the highway – they have no way of confronting you and you know it!
So what is that release about? Well, gettin’ called out! See, what happens behind the scenes in a competitive situation sometimes is if one party is losing or feels they may be in danger of losing the account they will put information out to the customer that must be investigated. They will say things that, if you as the customer are doing your due diligence, you must check into. The net effect is slowing down the sales cycle in order to try to spend more time convincing you not to go in another direction. A tactic that apparently Aruba Networks is fond of and Xirrus has gotten fed up with.
For Xirrus we can see the following laid bare:
Aruba Says:
“Comparable Aruba solution to [Xirrus] XN8 [Wi-Fi Array] will offer 6 times the coverage (when planned for coverage), for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands”
Xirrus Response:
Xirrus integrates 6dBi directional antennas into their XN8 Wi-Fi Array resulting in 4 times more coverage area than an Aruba AP, which only integrates 2.2dBi omni-directional antennas…[etc...]
Aruba Says:
“Comparable Aruba solution to [Xirrus] XN8 [Array] will offer 3 times the capacity (when planned for capacity), for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands”
Xirrus Response:
Xirrus integrates 8 radios into their XN8 Wi-Fi Array resulting in 4 times more capacity than a 2-radio Aruba AP….[etc...]
Aruba Says:
“Aruba WLAN enables rogue AP detection and classification without requiring any other software/server components or dedicated wireless sensors – and Xirrus does not”
And it goes on for quite a while. This is called creating FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Aruba Networks is notorious for this sales tactic. How do I know? Here is an excerpt from a very similar document Aruba uses with Cisco customers:
High Performance and Reliable RF
Support for High Density of Users per Radio
The 802.11 standard mainly includes the following mechanisms for airtime fairness: contention windows,
inter-frame spacing, back-off algorithms. Airtime fairness on a wireless network is hence a function of how…<blah blah blah>…A similar capability is not available within a Cisco WLAN solution.
Performance Protection for Mixed Mode Clients per Radio
Aruba’s WLAN enables performance protection against a mixed mode (e.g. 11b, 11g) clients associated to
the same radio. This is achieved by maximizing fairness in information rate without compromising fairness…<blah blah blah>…A similar capability is not available within a Cisco WLAN solution.
This Cisco FUD goes on and on for 23 pages! Lots of numbers and equations all specifically designed to look very credible so it can be used in accounts where they want to stall a sale. That’s what its called when they give you FUD and you have to, in the process of due diligence, check into these claims – “stall the sale”. Again, the claims about Cisco and Xirrus may or may not be true, but that doesn’t matter to Aruba. Their objective is to “stall the sale” with FUD.
Nice, huh? Oh there’s one here about Meru as well. We’ve been competing with Aruba since 2003 when they thought that managing APs over Layer 2 with no Layer 3 management was a good architectural decision (seriously), and we’re well aware of their tactics. Xirrus will get used to it.
Its proven out time and time again that what you need to do, as a customer, is understand your requirements, now and into the future, very thoroughly. Then go through a test with vendors to see if the system you are selecting really is suited to your needs. Meru doesn’t worry about the testing, in fact we invite it. Our architecture is fundamentally different and lives up to our claims. It is great to see customers setup tests or call our customers to hear it straight from them.
Its pretty clear Aruba Networks is using this tactic with every vendor they compete with and most of their information is outdated and horribly skewed (at least as it pertains to Meru), but that doesn’t stop them from using it. So take what they tell you with a grain of salt, do your homework, and remember trust is important – can you trust a vendor like that? You are not selecting a Palm Pre versus an iPhone. You are making a decision to pick a partner that is interested in fulfilling that network plan you worked so hard to envision. That requires trust, not FUD…
