Yeah, same here! (the best of breed opinion anyway, not a CIO...) There are
few things quite as frustrating as seeing a vendor starve your favorite
product line of development resources solely because some other 800lb gorilla
customer is dumping truckloads of cash in a different one, or because adding
feature X to product Z is against internal policy because feature X is for
carriers and product Z belongs to the enterprise group.
A true multi vendor best of breed approach at least gives you a better chance
of having the company better focused on a solution to the problem you're
looking for, rather than trying to make compromises to satisfy all of their
markets at once.
Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that
Manager of Network Operations | is simple, elegant, and wrong.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute | - HL Mencken
On 02/26/2015 04:47 PM, Williams, Matthew wrote:
I've heard from multiple CIOs that they don't want a "converged campus" solution. They
don't want to end up beholden to a single vendor for financial and security reasons. They want
best-of-breed products that provide the most bang for the buck without the caveats of, "Well
if you want that that feature then you'll have to buy this appliance/plugin/thing-a-ma-bob,
too."
I find the potential merger a bit disappointing because Aruba was a wireless
company (with a few switches) and that's what they did. I'd hate to see them
end up getting lost in the shuffle of HP's portfolio of solutions. Hopefully,
if this all goes through, that won't happen.
Respectfully,
Matthew Williams
IT Manager, Wireless
Kent State University
Office: (330) 672-7246
Mobile: (330) 469-0445
-----Original Message-----
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Thomas Carter
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 4:33 PM
To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] HP is reportedly trying to buy Aruba Networks
Yes, edge switches, but HP can sell the whole campus from firewalls to routers to core
switches to APs to software (clearpass, airwave, etc) to truly compete with the likes of
Cisco. They're pushing the "converged campus" to sound like a marketing wonk.
Whether or not they screw it up is what we'll have to wait and see.
Thomas Carter
Network and Operations Manager
Austin College
903-813-2564
-----Original Message-----
From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Frank Sweetser
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 2:44 PM
To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] HP is reportedly trying to buy Aruba Networks
On 02/26/2015 02:23 PM, Thomas Carter wrote:
I kept telling our Dell reps that Dell needs to buy into wireless and
grab Aerohive or Ruckus. They would just mention the Aruba deal; we'll
see what happens with that.
I do think this can be good for Aruba. I see it as this - Cisco is a
company that does $50B revenue annually and spends $6B in R&D. I know
that's not all wireless, but Aruba has $725M annual revenue with $170M
R&D. They need the financial backing to stay in second and maybe close
the gap on Cisco. If integrated well, HP could have a compelling
package with ProCurve and Aruba all managed under AirWave with some magic SDN
sprinkled in there somewhere.
But Aruba already has their own package with their MAS switches!
My biggest fear is that HP is buying Aruba the wireless company, not Aruba the
client access company. This would lead them to keeping the APs and
controllers, while putting all of the rest of the goodies that let us to
selecting them (Clearpass, Airwave's cross vendor capabilities, their
switches) in jeopardy of either being tossed outright or left hanging around
atrophying.
**********
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