BANGALORE, INDIA: The acceleration of enterprise adoption of WLAN technology is radically transforming business operations, the network edge, datacenters and centralized data control.

WLAN serves as a boon to organizations as it helps in saving wiring and maintenance costs by providing wireless mesh technology at the network distribution and access layer.

Industry Scoreboard
According to VOICE&DATA estimates, the current WLAN market stands at Rs 270 crore in FY 2008-09 as compared to Rs 210 crore in the FY 2007-08. Despite the economic downturn, revenue has managed a 28.6 percent growth, which is attributed to cost advantage of wireless network access and security.

Though there is a negative growth of -2 percent in the revenue of Cisco for FY 2008-09, the company retained its leadership position in the WLAN segment. Cisco recorded revenue of Rs 90 crore in FY 2008-09 as against Rs 91.8 crore in FY 2007-08. And a market share of 33.3 percent.

D-Link held the second position with revenues of Rs 46.2 crore in FY 2008-09 as compared to Rs 38.5 crore in the previous fiscal, with overall growth of 20%. Netgear managed to grab the # 3 place with an estimated revenue of Rs 33.6 crore and recorded a growth of 9.8%.

Growth Boosters
The growth in the wireless market in India will be driven by all segments of industries as more wireless LANs are being set up by corporates to complement their wired infrastructure.

The primary driver of the growth and adoption of wireless technologies is the boom in laptop penetration and the growing proliferation of wireless devices. Additionally, as Wi-Fi becomes more secure and as there is tighter integration between the wired and wireless networks, more growth can be seen in the adoption of wireless and mobility solutions.