ProCurve Seeks Commonality of Traffic Analysis Data in Its Wired and Wireless Networks

On September 25th ProCurve Networking by HP announced the first industry implementation of sFlow technology for wireless network access, a move designed to provide customers with increased visibility into wireless network traffic. sFlow boosts insight into network traffic both in wired and wireless environments, and it scales to large network deployments, allowing customers to respond to security threats quickly.

Recommended Competitor Responses

► Competitors that already support sFlow on their wired products, such as Alcatel-Lucent and Foundry, should consider adding sFlow for Wireless in their own WLAN products and take a similar approach to ProCurve in providing unified traffic analysis.

► Other wireless competitors need to take a long and hard look at sFlow for their current product lines. Customers and potential customers will be able to use sFlow with existing security software and that provides strong value for the customer.

► Companies in the security sector that provide IDS/IPS systems should consider adding functionality that addresses the wireless extensions to sFlow. This would be relatively easy to do and it would give the customer a much more in-depth look at the network as a whole.

| Client Access - Enterprise Network Systems |

Alcatel-Lucent Scales OXE, Sharpens Tools for Applications Sales

On September 20th Alcatel-Lucent introduced Corporate Communication Solutions for Large Enterprises, a program designed to match the needs of employees and their jobs with technology options. The program extends solutions bundles and new quoting tools to resellers. The company also announced enhanced and new products including: OmniPCX Enterprise 8.0, support for four new wireless handsets, a new OmniAccess WAN gateway series, the My Instant Communicator client interface, and various management, security and networking capabilities.

Recommended Competitor Responses

► Competitors should be aware of Alcatel-Lucent’s differentiators, but they should also focus on areas in which their rival is playing catch up. The DECT support and availability of a mid-size contact center in North America, PBX SIP trunk interoperability with a wider array of service providers, and even PBX scalability being introduced with OmniPCX Enterprise 8.0 are already checklist items within the portfolios of some of Alcatel-Lucent’s foremost rivals.

► All competitors should take a close look at Alcatel-Lucent’s My Instant Communicator user interface. The benefits to customers are clear-cut. But from a developer standpoint Alcatel-Lucent now has a single client to maintain and develop going forward.

► Alcatel-Lucent’s user profile tools and solutions bundling approach to selling applications is unique in its granularity, but it also can be perceived as a defensive move to counter previously announced initiatives from Avaya, Nortel and others.

► Competitors that have not introduced marketing programs in which solutions are pre-packaged according to user type and requirements should plan to do so.

► Avaya and Nortel should their respective Editions and UC 1-2-3 bundles as more straightforward and streamlined than the role-based user profiles that Alcatel-Lucent is proposing.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Customers interested in OmniPCX Enterprise should ask Alcatel-Lucent to provide evidence of the cost benefits involved in buying bundled solutions rather than “by the part” purchases. Prospective customers should also keep tabs on server and other hardware costs throughout the sales process.

► Existing OmniPCX Enterprise customers should inquire whether they are eligible for the bundled communications packages being presented by Alcatel-Lucent. These customers should also determine the requirements to upgrade existing systems to version 8.0.

► Existing Alcatel-Lucent customers that have deployed the company’s UC applications should inquire about how they can implement the new My Instant Communicator interface, which can reduce training time and improve the user experience.

| Client Access - Enterprise Communications |

Cisco Makes Upgrades to NAC Solutions

On September 10th Cisco has announced the NAC Network Module for the Integrated Services Routers, which resolves potential threats and vulnerabilities locally before they are transferred over the wide-area network (WAN). In addition to the ISR network module, Cisco is also enriching its NAC solution with Cisco NAC Profiler, an endpoint-recognition technology that maintains a detailed inventory of networked devices.

Recommended Competitor Responses

► Competitors should point out that there is nothing unique about Cisco NAC Profiler. The company is OEMing technology from Great Bay Software, which is readily available in the market. Vendors with clientless approaches to NAC should point out that Cisco’s need for the Profiler in the first place is driven by its agent-based approach to NAC.

► Competitors should continue to raise FUD regarding Cisco’s plans for integrating the NAC Appliance with the broader framework. Short of a formal announcement from Cisco, competitors should continue to suggest that the Cisco Appliance is a stopgap technology fix for Cisco.

► Competitors should continue to raise FUD regarding Cisco’s plans for integrating the NAC Appliance with the broader framework. Short of a formal announcement from Cisco, competitors should continue to suggest that the Cisco Appliance is a stopgap technology fix for Cisco.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Existing Cisco NAC customers, particularly NAC appliances customers should be pleased with the introduction of NAC Profiler. This product can significantly reduce the burden of controlling network access for unmanaged and unmanned devices, such as network printers.

► Existing Integrated Services Routers customers should also be pleased with the introduction of a NAC Network Module for the 2800 and 3800 families of ISRs. Customers of these product that have been considering NAC deployments will be pleased with the attractive price point of the new module, which is considerably lower than the list price of the stand alone NAC appliance

► Organizations that are considering NAC deployments should be aware that Cisco has been a long time leader in the space and that it continues to enhance and add to its solutions. With these announcements the company is reducing the cost and some of the complexity of deploying NAC solutions.

| Client Access - Enterprise Network Systems, Enterprise Security |