Motorola has announced its acquisition of wireless networking equipment vendor Symbol Technologies, which is a very positive move according to market research firm Infonetics Research.

     The acquisition of Symbol is focused around Motorola''s belief that everything is going wireless, and gives Motorola a complementary strength in enterprise WLAN to their portfolio of other wireless technologies, which includes cellular, mesh, and canopy wireless broadband," said Richard Webb, directing analyst for wireless at Infonetics. "Few other vendors can claim to rival that kind of position in the next generation wireless arena, and Motorola have an opportunity to use this acquisition to really push forward their agenda of seamless mobility."

Not much overlap
     "There does not appear to be too much overlap in the wireless product portfolios of Motorola and Symbol, and this should allow for a strong symbiosis," Webb continued. "Whilst all major acquisitions take some time to digest, it will give Motorola a great deal of leverage in the burgeoning enterprise wireless market, and particularly in retail, manufacturing, and logistics verticals, all of which have been traditional strongholds of Symbol over the years, based on their strength in data scanning and mobile computing."

Forecast report
     Infonetics'' recent quarterly report, Wireless LAN Equipment Market Share & Forecasts (published in August 2006), pegged the enterprise WLAN segment at US$1.1 billion in 2005, and forecasts healthy growth to US$2.4 billion by 2009.

     Symbol is currently ranked second in terms of market share for total enterprise WLAN equipment revenue in Q2 2006, behind Cisco, which has itself been strengthening its enterprise wireless portfolio some time. 116.30.145.87 This article is copyright 2006 UsingRFID.com.

     "Symbol was a key innovator in the early WLAN space, and the first vendor with a WLAN switch product, back in 2002," said Webb. "That space is a little crowded now with several specialists such as Aruba Networks performing strongly and catching up with Symbol''s early lead, but Symbol has continued to innovate, as exemplified by its next generation wireless platform, WiNG, as well as newer areas of significant potential growth, such as RFID."

 

 

                        

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