However, Tom Duffy, president of igxglobal, a solution provider in Rock Hill, Conn., questioned whether Aruba has the channel wherewithal to help its partners build such complex solutions. The company, which has partnered with Aruba for about nine months, has been asking for joint planning and strategizing with the vendor on how to tackle opportunities together but has received "only lip service," Duffy said, noting that Aruba had not yet reached out to him to educate him on its FMC strategy.
Melkote said Aruba already has passed through the first phase of its FMC strategy by building voice awareness into its WLAN products. Phase two includes extending the scalability of VoWLAN features, a milestone the company hits with its new features, he said.
Phase three will come with deeper enterprise integration as Aruba develops tighter ties with IP-PBX platforms from partners such as Alcatel and Avaya. The company plans next quarter to launch Mobile Voice Continuity, a software module for its family of mobility controllers that will work with SIP-based IP-PBXes to hand off calls to the cellular network, Duffy said.
Phase four of its road map calls for carrier integration with the Aruba mobility controller taking on the function of a standard security gateway to carriers' UMA architectures, while phase five will provide seamless networking between Wi-Fi and IMS-based cellular networks, he said.
Aruba rivals Meru and Trapeze also are touting the voice-ready features of their WLAN portfolios. Meru, in particular, has positioned itself as a VoWLAN specialist, pointing to quality of service and support for high-density access points as
key features to support voice and FMC deployments, said Michael Tennefoss, vice president of marketing at Meru, Sunnyvale, Calif.
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