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HP looks to sell, manage corporate Wi-Fi networks

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has started a new campaign to sell wireless Internet technology to corporate offices and to help manage those systems.

The company's offering, which executives discussed on Tuesday in an interview, underscores the trend of big technology companies getting into the business of servicing wireless network equip-ment as well as selling it, wireless industry executives said.

Hewlett-Packard said it signed a deal with Aruba Wireless Networks, a wireless start-up based in San Jose, California, that will provide the underlying technology to build and manage the wireless network.

Don LeBeau, chief executive of Aruba, said his company was also working on deals with IBM and several other technology companies that plan to sell and manage wireless Internet corporate networks.

Despite the interest of HP and other technology companies, the deployment of wireless Internet, or Wi-Fi, connections in corporate offices is relatively limited and fraught with technical and security problems, according to analysts.

Roughly 9 percent of busi-nesses worldwide have equipped their offices with wireless access, according to the Farpoint Group, a consulting firm.

Craig Mathias, a principal analyst with Farpoint, said corporations had been wary of deploying Wi-Fi because it could be expensive to manage and fix. It is also challenging to make the network available to employees who use different mobile devices and to ensure the security of data transmitted on networks that may be susceptible to intruders.

But Mathias said the involvement of major technology companies like HP could increase corporate confidence in Wi-Fi technology. This could lead to "a very rapid expansion of wireless" corporate networks, he said.

Other analysts are less optimistic. Stephen Kamman, a telecommunications analyst with CIBC World Markets, said corporations, most of them already having high-speed Internet access through land lines, may not find it necessary to also have a wireless network.

"Wi-Fi is proving to be a `nice to have,' not a `need to have,"' he said. "Any enthusiasm should be tempered by that reality."

HP has deployed Wi-Fi access points in numerous public and corporate settings, and 1 million users worldwide regularly access the Internet over HP networks, said Alex Gruzen, a senior vice president with the company.
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