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Wireless - Thursday, January 10, 2008

Aruba Pays $37M For Airwave Wireless

Aruba Networks (Nasdaq: ARUN) is buying San Mateo-based Airwave Wireless and will pay $37M. Airwave makes WLAN management software. Airwave had raised funding from Ignition Partners, Idealab and Westbury Equity Partners.

Says Ovum Research: "The two companies have largely disjointed customer bases and so this merger will give both a substantial expansion of their addressable market. Airwave has some very large customers, and gives the capability to manage 50,000 devices. Many of its users choose it even if they have a single vendor wireless network because of its superior management interface, reporting and diagnostic capabilities; according to Aruba most Airwave users are Cisco customers, who choose to use the Airwave management software in preference to Cisco's own. Its other big selling point is that it allows enterprises to migrate gradually to newer technology and avoid the need for disruptive 'big bang' changes."

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