WLAN Gear Sales Up 30% In 2004, Study Says

Sales of WLAN equipment increased by 30 percent in 2004 with Cisco Systems retaining its dominant position, according to a study released this week by Synergy Research Group.

The study found that sales of enterprise-grade WLAN equipment increased 40 percent in 2004 while sales of gear for small offices and homes increased by 23 percent. Cisco Systems remained the leading enterprise vendor with year-on-year growth of 56 percent, according to the study. Symbol Technologies was the second-leading enterprise vendor and 3Com was in third place.

Interestingly, Airespace, a startup wireless switch vendor being acquired by Cisco, was in fourth place. According to the study, Airespace's market share in the enterprise WLAN market increased 427 percent in 2004 compared to 2003.

"Enterprise sales continue to be driven by the growing size of Enterprise deployments, as well as existing WLAN build-outs," Aaron Vance, a senior analyst for Synergy, said in a statement.

In the home and SOHO market, Linksys, which is owned by Cisco, remained the leader, followed by D-Link and Netgear..