Cisco, Smart on Dumb Airespace?

The big news today is Cisco's bid to buy Airespace for $450 million. Most of the pundits are on track with their remarks. But Frank Dzubeck's comments in the Wall Street Journal (reg req) about Cisco not having a "dumb strategy" are absolutely hilarious, not so much because it is a clever play on words, but more because it indicates how dumb the industry's perception can be.

Airespace AP's are far from dumb. In fact, they are every bit as smart as Cisco's Aironet devices, maybe smarter. They perform real-time airwave monitoring while simultaneously delivering multi-mode, multi-band WLAN service. They do AES encryption and manage QoS. They include dual smart patch antennas to optimize coverage. They even provide location capabilities. That's not dumb. What differentiates Airespace from Cisco is the former's network architecture, which uses coordinated and distributed controllers communicating with AP's to deliver a higher-performance, more secure, more manageable, and more scalable architecture.