Update to WLAN Vendor Tiers

Two years ago I posted a list of what I thought were the current state of Wireless LAN Vendors into three tiers. It received quite a few comments, and I thought it high time to revisit this list. (plus a little nudge from Zaib over at http://www.wlanbook.com.

This is not some ‘Gartner Magic Quadrant’ type thing. No hard data, like from a Dell’Oro Group report. This is just my personal opinion of where these fall. Not a ranking by quality, or by technology… just a ‘gut feel’ from what I see out in the marketplace. They are just random inside the Tiers. I was not about to try and rank these within tiers… that would take more research and numbers… then this wouldn’t be a ‘gut feel’ but measured.

I would love to hear what you think. Did I miss any major vendor? Any of these placed in the wrong Tier?

Tier One

  • Cisco
  • Aruba
  • Motorola

Tier Two

  • Ruckus
  • Aerohive
  • Meraki
  • Ubiquiti
  • Hewlett Packard
  • Xirrus
  • D-Link
  • Meru
  • Enterasys/Siemens
  • Trapeze

Tier Three

  • Senao/Engenius
  • Mikrotik
  • Bluesocket
  • 3Com
  • LANCOM
  • Extricom
  • Proxim Wireless
  • Belkin
  • Linksys
  • Netgear
  • Fon
  • SMC
  • RealTek
  • TrendNet
  • ZyXEL

There are other Vendors who work in more Niche space like FireTide and Belair that I haven’t added to any of these tiers. Or those like Extreme that just OEM someone else’s product lines.

This is purely one man’s opinion… what are your opinions? Who should be moved between tiers, who should be added or removed? What WLAN vendors do you see in your space?