Ruckus Wireless wants to double its partner base in Canada

U.S.-based Wi-Fi and WLAN (wirless local area networks) vendor, Ruckus Wireless Inc. is aiming to as much as triple its Canadian revenues next year, and central to the WiFi and WLAN vendor’s strategy is a doubling of its Canadian partner base.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor services the carrier and enterprise markets with its MediaFlex Smart WiFi and ZoneFlex Smart WLAN products. David Callisch, vice-president of marketing at Ruckus, said globally, the company has more than 1,100 channel partners, and growing. In Canada, that number sits at about 20 partners. The company recently hired a regional sales manager, Giancarlo D’Amico, to manage the Canadian operations.

“We expect to double or triple our Canadian revenues next year,” Callisch said. “Canada has largely been an untapped market for us in sales and there’s so much demand.”

D’Amico, who just joined Ruckus last month, is in charge of the Canadian business and partnerships. Before joining the company, he worked at another WiMax solution vendor. All together, Callisch said he has about 20 years of career experience in the Canadian software, networking and storage markets.

The company currently conducts about 50 per cent of its overall revenue through the channel, with plans to increase this percentage. Ruckus depends on its partners to help deliver solutions to the middle-part of the enterprise market, which the vendor classes as between 5,000 and 10,000 employees.

Ruckus is on the lookout for partners with networking experience that have sold WiFi before and have some knowledge of the wireless space, Callisch explained. These partners will have to work in the education, hospitality or healthcare markets and also achieve over $1 million of annual revenue.

Callisch said the company is known for its Smart WiFi and Smart Mesh networking technologies, which enable a reliable signal and network.

“Our smart antenna array system is essentially a fancy miniaturized antenna system that steers traffic around obstacles and interference. This makes Wi-Fi more reliable so you can even run a stream of high-definition video over the medium,” he said.

Callisch said because the solution is easy to deploy and is low in costs, it’s popular amongst vertical markets such as hospitality, education and healthcare.

More recently, the company also introduced its Wireless Broadband Access portfolio, which consists of both indoor and outdoor products and a controller box, he said.

“These products help broadband operators offer a broadband service to consumers by using WiFi, as opposed to a WiMax, LTE, or 3G-type of service,” Callisch said. “We’re trying to take Wi-Fi to the next level by giving it more range.”

The Wireless Broadband Access solution would do well for apartment complexes, Callisch said, as an example.

“There’s a large market for selling the Wireless Broadband Access solution to broadband operators who can then provide a DSL service wirelessly, where it makes more sense to provide a broadband solution over wireless,” he explained. “Our value proposition is that you can deploy one of our systems at a fifth of the cost that it would cost to deploy a system like WiMax. Broadband can be deployed faster, cheaper and more reliably.”

Depending on the partner and their involvement with Ruckus Wireless, Callisch said they can earn anywhere between 20 and 35 per cent margin.

“We go through a channel because it gives us leverage (in the market),” Callisch said. “We’re looking for more coverage and quality in 2010.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Maxine Cheung
Maxine Cheung
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