ProCurve + Colubris- What to Expect

With HP ProCurve’s acquisition of wireless provider Colubris, what should the industry expect?

Oh, who knows… but people have asked my opinion, so I’ll share my thoughts, musings and speculations with the masses.

You can find more information and read my initial reactions in Andrew’s write-up of the CRN release ProCurve’s Colubris Buy A ‘Great Move’

Background. ProCurve, HP’s networking division, has had great success in the layer 2 and 3 switching market, with particularly nice results in their 10GbE products and their new ‘core’ 8212 switch. They’ve even added several security offerings to the portfolio, including their NAC 800 appliance and NBAD and flow analysis product- Network Immunity Manager. But, there was no debating they’ve been lacking in their wireless offerings…

With a couple of standard single- and dual-radio heavy access points and the newer light-ap WESM (wireless edge services module) system- their wireless portfolio certainly hasn’t been the most well-rounded. ProCurve’s move to purchase a wireless vendor was surprising, but not shocking. While ProCurve has OEM’d and purchased technologies from other vendors, I think this marks their first-ever acquisition of another company.

The acquired. Colubris has a strong presence in areas with wireless overlays, such as medical and especially hospitality markets. In these environments, the wireless solution is simply layered over the wired infrastructure, usually completely segregated and certainly managed independently of other systems.

What will be interesting to see is

FULL ENTRY
http://securityuncorked.com/2008/08/procurve-colubris-what-to-expect/