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I had the opportunity to meet with Xirrus today
To get a look at their 8 and 16 radio enterprise Wi-Fi access products, which have the switching and management system integrated right into the ceiling-mount access points.
Along with many other unique features and capabilities including a “threat sensor” antenna, and several other unique innovations. As is appropriate for a company targeting this segment, Xirrus is an RF-intensive startup, with lineage from Xircom founders and management.
Xirrus cleverly designed Wi-Fi solution is reportedly catching on with Universities, SMB’s, and K1-12 customers. This looks to be a mid-range solution at an attractive price point ($5,995 for the 8 radio accesspoint), targeted at small to medium business (SMB) customers and institutions. I haven’t seen a comparable product in the Wi-Fi market, and there are 8 Million SMB’s in the US alone. When I wrote this Xirrus was offering an upgrade path to 802.11n hardware at 30% of the list price.
I would expect Xirrus (disclosure: no affiliation, business or personal) should do very well with this product line architecture and pricepoint. A few days after my visit with them, Xirrus announced closing a $26M B Round led by Canaan Partners.