It's entirely legitimate for vendors to highlight factual errors in
reviews, and though most assertions of factual error turn out to be more
grey than black or white, we are obliged to seriously consider these
complaints. There were assertions that Airespace and Aruba had provided
incorrect pricing to improve their scores in our pricing scenarios.
After assessing the situation, we concluded that both were guilty, if
not of deception than certainly of negligence. Airespace quoted us
pricing for a single-radio AP that it should have known we would not
recommend. Aruba quoted us a "direct-sale" price on its AP and "bundled
pricing" on switch software, even though we explicitly requested MSRP
for all software and hardware components. More accurate pricing would
not have significantly impacted the Interactive Report Card grades
(Aruba likely would have finished third rather than tied for second with
Cisco). We'll leave it to our readers to pass further judgment.
Beyond factual errors, there is room for legitimate disagreement about
other points. For example, Trapeze was penalized for lack of WPA2
certification (it was in process during the review), even though its
product passed our WPA2 test. Maybe we were too tough on that one, but
readers have told us that Wi-Fi Alliance certification, with all its
warts, is very important to product selection and we felt it would have
been unfair not to reward vendors that had completed the certification
process. Likewise, Aruba felt we didn't give it enough credit for its
integrated firewall feature. We just didn't feel it warranted as much
recognition as the company did. As a prospective customer, if you feel
that's the killer feature, you should seriously consider Aruba's
offering. That's what Frank said in his analysis.
Behind the Scenes
The really interesting reactions often come behind the scenes. They
often come through private documents distributed to internal employees
and, sometimes, we suspect, via planted postings on Web sites. In an
internal document filled with errors forwarded to me by one of its sales
prospects, Trapeze blasted us for including VPN support as one of many
elements in our security grade while also noting that the company plans
to add that capability in a future release.
We saw one Web posting suggesting Airespace had bought the win by hiring
a former graduate student who had worked on a previous review in our
lab. Another post questioned Frank Bulk's technical competence, an
attack that would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. If Frank is
incompetent, then so too are the vast majority of network professionals
to whom these products are being sold. Attempts to follow-up with these
posters by e-mail resulted in no response. Judge for yourself.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
