Roulston's Technology Consultant on Innovation in Wi-Fi

Roulston Research’s Technology Consultant Craig Mathias recently wrote an article on how the wireless-LAN industry continues to see remarkable innovation despite being around for over twenty years. He points to the introduction of new products from Motorola and Meru Networks as perfect examples of how the industry continues to reinvent itself. Motorola introduced a new high-end controller called the NX 9000 which has the potential to evolve from simply a controller to a platform of applications. Craig states, “As controllers are basically single-board computers running specialized software, why not host that software on a platform capable of much more? And, indeed, Motorola is going to move in that direction over time.”

Meru Networks announced the new AP400 series which allows users to have up to four radios at capacity levels that were once thought to be unheard of. Craig expects the level of innovation in this space to slow over the next three to five years based on his belief in the life-cycle of high technology products. He explains, “Products and services are essentially good enough to address almost any common application with very favorable price/performance, and that further innovations from that point would more likely be in pursuit of incremental enhancements in revenues and profits (via product-line extensions), not the application of new basic technologies.” This will eventually allow people to focus on applications instead worrying about constantly upgrading rapidly changing technology. You can read Craig’s full blog post at
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/wi-fi-no-slowdown-innovation-yet

Craig J. Mathias is a Principal with Farpoint Group, an advisory and systems-integration firm based in Ashland, MA, specializing in wireless networking, mobile computing, and related technologies, products, and services. He will be participating in the Wireless and Mobile Device Roundtable event on Wednesday June 8th at 2 PM in New York City.