Wireless LAN supplier Aruba Networks has enjoyed a lot of success since going public in march. Now it stands in direct competition with Cisco Cystems. Both are quickly gaining market shares, this leading to the belief that soon the wireless networking competition will become a close fight between the two companies.

Last week Aruba signed a contract with Prudential Fox & Roach, USA’s largest single-market real estate agency. They ended up choosing between Cisco and Aruba and Aruba won. This comes after the current no.2 most important company in the industry landed another huge contract with the US Air Force, which will replace Cisco WLAN gear with Aruba systems in 104 bases. Ohio State University also installed devices by the same company in over 400 buildings and even Microsoft will replace its 6-year-old Cisco network with Aruba gear in around 250 buildings on its huge campus in Redmond and offices in 60 countries.

The competition between the two companies is soon to become a reality. In the first quarter Cisco’s WLAN market share was of 64 percent, four points higher than a year before. In the same period Aruba doubled its market share to 9 percent and is growing a lot faster than Cisco. On the other hand Cisco holds the money advantage, as its revenue for the most recent quarter was around $235 million, seven times that of Aruba.

According to Dell’Oro, the total wireless LAN market will be higher than $8 billion in the next 5 years with 40 percent in enterprises and the rest in small contracts. Analysis show that competition will be narrowing to Aruba vs. Cisco because former No. 2, Symbol Technologies, saw its share drop by 40 percent during the last year. Trapeze Networks also lost 25 percent and Meru Networks is said to be looking for a buyer.
Although Cisco is very confident that they will not be dethroned, Aruba is coming up fast and should pose a real threat soon.