Counting on market timing and an established foothold in the wiring closet, the company is looking to capture a share of a market dominated by Cisco Systems Inc.

That market's promise has attracted a plethora of startups over the past year. Airespace, Aruba Wireless, Chantry Networks, Trapeze Networks, Vivato and others tout centralized architectures from which all the APs can be managed to reduce the cost and raise the scalability of wireless nets.

Foundry (San Jose, Calif.) claims it is unlike those other startups, however, and that it will be able to add secure WLAN capability with nothing more than a software upgrade, after the APs are added.

"These startups are looking to wireless to get them into the enterprise, but our customers tell us they are wary of these wireless switch vendors as they have very limited wireline support," said Ken Cheng, vice president and general manager of Foundry's enterprise business unit. A WLAN should be viewed no differently from the wired network in management requirements, Cheng said, and WLAN integration into an overall network should not require additional, special-purpose boxes like those pushed by the startups.

"That's just patently not true," said Alan Cohen, vice president of marketing at Airespace Inc. (San Jose, Calif.). "We have 50 customers to date and growing. We heard the same argument when Extreme Networks announced its WLAN switching solution, and where are they now? The incumbents are underestimating what it takes to perform effective WLAN management."

Cohen said a customer's decision comes down to which vendor's solution can best manage radio resources while ensuring secure connections with seamless mobility and fast handoff from subnet to subnet. He also cited an ability to support mobile virtual private networks and VPNs terminated at the switch as test points for new introductions.

The management of radio resources is so critical, Cohen said, that Airespace this week is launching a free site survey service for any potential customer to provide a clear picture of WLAN coverage requirements.

At Foundry Networks, Cheng said the timing of its WLAN solution is another factor in the company's favor. "We waited until now because by the end of this quarter the [IEEE 802.11] standards will be pretty much done," he said. "Plus, our studies show that customers are only now starting to seriously consider deploying WLANs and so will start trials and early deployments later this year and early next."

Foundry's IronPoint wireless solution rolls in late September, starting with the IronPoint 200 access point and the IronView Network Manager software for integrated WLAN/wired-network management. The software is an addition to Foundry's existing line of FastIron Edge Switches (FESes). The AP, based on an Atheros Communications 802.11a/b/g chip set, is priced at $899 and supports 802.11f for enhanced Layer 2 mobility, dynamic channel assignment and 802.11af (power-over-Ethernet). Those will be followed in December by a new FES that includes built-in WLAN support, including Layer 3 roaming, enhanced security, sFlow integration and Internet Protocol Secure and VPN pass-through support.

Foundry will complete its lineup in the first half of 2004 by introducing a chassis with rogue AP detection, power-over-Ethernet support, dynamic power and load balancing, dynamic user policies, and accounting and billing support for Wi-Fi hotspots.