Blogging and Vendor Blowback

I’ve been pretty fortunate that in my years as a blogger and a WFD/MFD delegate, that my employer has allowed me to express my opinions on this blog, attend these events and doesn’t pressure me to write about the vendors that we sell.  Likewise, the vendors that I sell have been quiet on the matter.  Maybe they don’t care, maybe I’m too small to worry about.

Wireless: Vendors, Partners and You

Note: This is a post derived from one of my emails to the Educause wireless lan mailing list related to issues around certain versions of code and receiving different recommendations from the BU, TAC and Partners.

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One of the things as a partner I try to do is educate customers on is “who is recommending what, and why.”

Mojo Networks: Driving Value With Open Hardware Standards #MFD2

Wireless has always had somewhat of a vendor lock-in nature.  You buy APs from a vendor, you are likely stuck buying their controller, cloud management, etc.  And if their system doesn’t grow with you, continue to meet your needs or becomes a giant bug model where you just spend all day QAing someone’s code in production, it generally requires a forklift upgrade to another vendor's system.

The challenge here is having that other vendor’s software tied to their hardware platform, necessitating the need to forklift.  The sad part of this with access points is the hardware for APs are probably 90% the same. They likely come from Broadcom, or QCA, and are all based around the same basic technology.