Last month, Brocade completed its acquisition of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ruckus Wireless, representing an important step in Brocade’s strategic vision “to build a pure-play networking company that supports the rapidly evolving requirements of the digital transformation era.”
“The acquisition complements Brocade’s enterprise networking portfolio, adding Ruckus’ wireless products to Brocade’s existing networking solutions,”said Michael Lok, Managing Director, ASEAN at Ruckus Wireless.
In an email interview with Networks Asia, Lok noted that digital transformation necessitates the need for companies to move to new network architectures that are agile, open, and allow for the delivery of services from the data centre to the network edge. Wireless technologies, in particular, are critical elements at the edge of these modern, new IP network architectures.
“The combination of Ruckus and Brocade enables the company to provide such solutions, and give our customers the ability to obtain their networking solutions from a single vendor as well as continue to run multi-vendor wired/wireless infrastructures.”
The following is the excerpt of the Q&A:
1. How far along is the integration? How much longer will it be going on for?
The acquisition of Ruckus Wireless was completed on 27 May, 2016. Ruckus is now operating as a wireless networking business unit led by current Ruckus Wireless CEO, Selina Lo. The two companies are currently in the post-acquisition integration process, during which decisions such as brand integration will be made.
2. How will the solutions portfolios be combined? How is it going? Have product roadmaps been affected? How will new products have technologies chosen for them?
The combination of Ruckus and Brocade enables the company to provide solutions from storage and data centre network infrastructure to the wireless/mobile edge. Brocade has been focused on solutions from the data centre, mobile and wireless solutions, including the mobile edge, mobile core, and virtualised enterprise, while Ruckus’ virtualised WLAN enables new ways to deliver wireless managed services.
As previously mentioned, Ruckus will be operating as a new business unit to meet its own product schedules, however it is expected that Brocade products will be available through Ruckus routes to market. Together, the two companies are able to offer an entirely complementary and synergistic range of solutions from data centre to access for service providers.
3. What about R&D? How will this be carried out from now on? Will there be specific areas that will be prioritized?
The combined company is positioned to address the changing market needs for new network architectures in the digital business era. We will also carry out product development with a focus on innovative solutions at the new telco, mobile and enterprise edge through to the new data centre. Specifically, the new company will target new growth opportunities in:
- Campus and hospitality networking (wired and wireless);
- SDN/NFV (new data centre) and cloud services;
- Service provider packet core to service provider Wi-Fi edge; and,
- OpenG for in-building LTE.
4. Are there any changes to customer engagement? Are your channel programs changing? Who will customers call for support?
At this stage, Brocade and Ruckus are not planning any near-term changes in the channel and partner structure for either company. Both companies will continue to work with their existing and future partners. Ruckus and Brocade will also maintain their own sales and support for their customers in the short term. Ruckus solutions will continue to be sold and supported by Ruckus’ current teams, as will Brocade solutions.
Over time, it is expected that the full integration of Ruckus with Brocade will bring the two companies’ collective partners and customers a complete portfolio of products and solutions addressing all networking requirements from the combined company.
5. How is APAC looking? Are there specific markets or verticals you feel are particularly hopeful?
We believe that the Asia Pacific region is becoming one of the biggest growth opportunities for next generation wireless technologies, as the majority of APAC mobile users strongly prefer Wi-Fi to mobile data. Wi-Fi is also going to play an increasingly important role in providing consumers and businesses with the high speed, high capacity connectivity they require, particularly in the developing nations around the region, as they have no or very little legacy infrastructure to navigate. For developed countries, state-backed initiatives such as smart cities are also pushing for a network infrastructure overhaul to allow the adaption of next generation technologies, which would certainly require Wi-Fi connectivity. And Ruckus Wireless in Asia also sees the most growth in Service Provider business.
Smart Cities
Ruckus has built connected cities in all parts of the world that utilise a combination of indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi access points with back-end systems in the cloud. Because we believe in providing a platform for innovation, our analytics and location services have an open API on which developers can create new services and applications for smart cities. Creating a connected environment heavily relies on the ability to connect smart devices to the internet to enable communications. Cellular networks are already congested and do not work well indoors. This makes Wi-Fi the perfect connectivity tool to address the smart city’s connectivity needs, providing a reliable, high capacity network as the foundation for the city to build smart services and applications on top of. Asian cities such as Chongqing, Perth and Osaka have all become smarter with Ruckus.
Retail, Education, Hospitality
We also see a lot of opportunities in the retail, education, Healthcare, Multiple Dwelling Unit (MDU) and hospitality space.
Colleges and universities are challenged by the incredible number of mobile devices on campus and the increasing demand for online educational content. Students, faculty and staff expect wireless connectivity to be available just as readily and reliably as the lights coming on in a room. What Ruckus does for institutions like Western Sydney University is providing them with the ability to easily and securely on-board and handle multiple devices and deliver optimal wireless connectivity even in dense classrooms and auditoriums.
For the hospitality industry, wireless is no longer just another amenity for guests at hotels. It has become a prerequisite for doing business. Globally, we see that hotels aiming to increase revenues and maximise profitability are jumping on the wireless bandwagon. Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Intercontinental Hotels Group, AccorHotels and Marriott Corp. are all deploying Ruckus in hotels worldwide. In over 90% of the installs, these hotels were able to reduce their original AP count by as much as 25%, saving them significant amounts of money.
In the retail space, besides providing shoppers with high-performance, high-density Wi-Fi guest access, we have been helping to bridge the gap between online shopping and physical stores by gathering insights about consumer shopping behaviours in real-time. This information is then leveraged to help retailers to make decisions such as optimising store layout and with engagement APIs and third party applications. Retailers are also able to push targeted promotions to shoppers’ smartphones and analyse marketing effectiveness.