Poll: Data Centers Go Wireless

Despite all the hype surrounding security, wireless technologies are set to be the hottest piece of data center kit in 2005, according to NDCFs market outlook poll for this year (see 2005 Market Outlook )

Almost 90 percent of respondents predicted either strong or moderate growth in wireless local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) technologies for this year. The second top technology area was security, encompassing firewalls and VPNs -- three quarters of the IT managers taking part in the survey foresee growth as their businesses look to boost their defenses.

The result is perhaps a little surprising given the amount of attention paid to the issue of security, with users facing a host of different threats and vendors rushing to their aid (see Security Startups Flood the Market and Beware of the Trojans!).

The union of enterprise voice over IP (VOIP) and wireless was high on the agenda at this week’s Light Reading Telecom Investment Conference. A number of firms are now looking to exploit the new market opportunities presented by wireless. The conference's keynote speaker Joan Kratz, VP of business marketing at BellSouth Corp. (NYSE: BLS), explained how her company is handling VOIP over wireless WAN (see VOIP Goes Mobile in NYC).

Intriguingly, only 8 percent of those taking part in the survey foresaw strong growth around servers and switches, despite the flurry of announcements coming out of vendors such as IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL), and Force10 Networks Inc. during recent weeks (see IBM Announces VMware/McData Bundle , Dell Spews News, and Force 10 Aims for the Data Center).One market that is fairly tepid at the moment is Web server software. A third of respondents predicted weak growth in this area, and a further 19 percent said the market for Web server software will be flat.

Maybe more vendors could end up taking startup Zeus Technology's example. The U.K firm, which started life selling Web server software in the '90s, has since branched out into the traffic management technology. The company’s vice president of marketing recently told NDCF that Web server software currently accounts for only 25 percent of the company’s revenues (see Zeus Scores $6M).

— James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-Gen Data Center Forum