Colubris Networks, Inc., the leading global provider of intelligent wireless LANs (WLANs) for enterprises and service providers, today announced a major push into the enterprise WLAN market. At the center of the initiative are a series of new enterprise-focused products, a new enterprise reseller program, and the announcement of new enterprise customers and channel partners.
Colubris will now deliver focused WLAN solutions for the manufacturing, healthcare, and education markets, complementing the company’s leadership solutions for the service provider, hospitality, and transportation sectors. To demonstrate its momentum in these new verticals, Colubris today announced deals with Wayne Memorial Hospital and George Mason University (see related press releases). This initiative builds on successful deployments with the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, North America’s biggest producer of mattresses and bedding, and the world’s most famous motorcycle company.
“We run one of the most advanced and demanding manufacturing operations in our industry, and we needed a wireless solution that was going to be flexible and reliable enough to keep up,” said Michael Mantzke, director of IT at Coleman Powermate, a leading manufacturer of power equipment. “We looked at several competing options and ultimately chose Colubris because they offered an unbeatable combination of performance, ease-of-use, scalability, and price.”
Expanded Product Offerings for the Enterprise
Colubris is introducing four new products: the Colubris MSC-5100 MultiService Controller, Colubris Operating System v5, the Colubris Visitor Management Tool, and the Colubris WCB-200 Wireless Client Bridge.
The Colubris MSC-5100 is a multiservice WLAN controller designed to offer small and medium enterprises, as well as remote offices of larger enterprises, the benefits of centralized WLAN management. It is the first product in its class to offer automated discovery and configuration of wireless access points (APs) without the performance penalties inherent in competing products. Additionally, the MSC-5100 sets a new price/performance bar for the market, as it is priced approximately 45% lower than competing products, but offers far greater performance due to Colubris’ unique TriPlane™ architecture that reduces backbone traffic by as much as 98%.
Accompanying the release of the MCS-5100 is a new version of the Colubris operating system, COS v5, which powers the entire line of Colubris equipment. COS v5 includes a number of significant enhancements for enterprise customers, including enhanced automatic network configuration of all WLAN components and support for Colubris’ Local Mesh Protocol (LMP). LMP offers dynamic link reconfiguration to automatically heal the network in the event of signal loss, continual channel optimization to ensure peak performance at all times, QoS for voice and real-time application convergence, and advanced security features to ensure the privacy and integrity of network traffic. LMP enables organizations to easily create hotzones — WLAN coverage in areas where it is not possible to connect access points to a wired network.
Also new for the enterprise market is the Colubris Visitor Management Tool (VMT), a software application that works in conjunction with Colubris’ award-winning guest Internet access solution to make it trivially easy for non-IT personnel to manage guest access to wireless networks. For example, using the Colubris VMT, an authorized receptionist could easily grant visitors access to the company’s WLAN at the same time he or she issued their visitor badges. The combined solution ensures the integrity of enterprise applications by enforcing strong security policies on all visitor traffic, and features Colubris’ “zero configuration” service interface to make it easy for guests to access the network.
Rounding out the new enterprise-focused product offerings is the Colubris WCB-200 Wireless Client Bridge. The WCB-200 provides the world’s simplest way to deliver wireless connectivity to legacy or specialized equipment that offers only serial or Ethernet ports. Using the WCB-200, organizations can quickly attach printers, manufacturing equipment, and other devices that lack native wireless support, to their WLANs. Already, several of the world’s largest manufacturers have adopted the WCB-200 to provide mobility and pervasive wireless connectivity to specialized equipment in assembly plants and factories.
The four new products join Colubris’ existing line of WLAN products which includes:
- MSC-5200 & MSC-5500 MultiService Controllers – The 5000 Series controllers feature Colubris’ unique TriPlane optimized WLAN switch architecture, centralizing management and control for an entire network of Colubris access points and minimizing operating expense.
- MSC-3200 & MSC-3300 MultiService Controllers – Colubris’ 3000 Series controllers are at the heart of its famed “Hotspot In A Box” application, and are designed specifically for public and guest access applications.
- MAP-320 & MAP-330 MultiService Access Points – Colubris’ family of WLAN access points offer the most extensive feature set in the industry, including best-of-breed management, scalability, and security.
- Colubris Network Management System (NMS) – Designed for large enterprises and geographically distributed networks, the Colubris NMS offers centralized management of all WLAN configurations, performance monitoring, fault management, and troubleshooting functions.
“Colubris’ unique TriPlane architecture has made us the first choice for the service provider and the hospitality sectors,” said Roger Sands, co-president of Colubris. “Those markets have always needed the level of scalability and optimization that only the Colubris TriPlane architecture can provide. Now, as 802.11n looms large, and high-performance applications such as video and voice become more pervasive on the wireless network, enterprises also need a more scalable solution. The legacy switch architectures offered by other WLAN vendors simply can’t scale to handle the high-bandwidth, low-latency nature of those applications, so we’re effectively stepping in to fill the performance void left by the other vendors’ traditional architectures.”
The Colubris Advanced Partner Program
Fueling Colubris’ expansion into the enterprise market is its new Colubris Advanced Partner Program (CAPP). Colubris launched CAPP just last month with more than 200 premier partners, across North America, Europe, and Asia.
“Some people think of Colubris only in the context of the service provider and hospitality markets, but they have an unbelievably strong offering for the enterprise,” said James Cirilli, senior vice president of sales at Data Capture Solutions (DCS), a charter member of CAPP and leading provider of mobile device and WLAN solutions for the healthcare market. “It’s great to see Colubris launching full-tilt into the enterprise sector because they offer the scalability, security, and ease of use that no one else can. They’re literally a full 18-24 months ahead of the competition in terms of having a WLAN architecture that will support 802.11n and the high-bandwidth applications our customers are starting to deploy. There’s no question they’re filling a void in the market.”
More information about CAPP can be found at http://www.colubris.com/partners/partner-program.asp.
About Colubris
Colubris Networks is the leading global provider of intelligent wireless networks (WLANs) for service providers and enterprises. Its optimized WLAN switching systems deliver unmatched bandwidth efficiency, seamless mobility and secure, easy access for more than 1,500 organizations and 40 million users worldwide. Its systems unify and integrate with existing network infrastructures, security and management systems and provide “future-proof” investment protection as standards evolve and user populations grow. Colubris’ numerous recognitions include Red Herring’s top 100 private companies in North America, Fierce Wireless Fierce 15 and Mobile Trax Mobility Award.
