Integrated WLAN Cards

[jeff-krauss]

Hi,

I'm hoping the WLAN Product Manager is lurking as this is one of those type of questions:

I have customers who are loyal to the Cisco WLAN architecture but are conflicted because new laptops are coming out with integrated WLAN cards that are not Cisco.

Which OEM's have CISCO Aironet Nics builtin? Is there a list somewhere on the Cisco site?

What is Cisco's strategy with regard to this trend? Are you going to continue to focus on aftermarket or are you going to partner with IBM/Compaq/Dell to provide WLAN NIC's?

Thanks,

[scottmac]

I don't know for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet that there are no Cisco NICs in any of the systems.

Intel (Centrino or otherwise) and Broadcom seem to pretty much have the OEM market pretty well covered.

FWIW

Scott

[jakew · Accepted solution]

Cisco obviously won't comment on strategy or product roadmap in a public forum like this.

The key consideration for integrated WLAN cards is to make sure that they are Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX) compliant. Here is the link.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/partners/pr46/pr147/partners_pgm_concept_home.html

[harton]

Cisco has a "Cisco Compatible Extensions Program" which issues "Cisco Compatiple" logos to devices that are suppose to work with their WLAN infrastructure. Here's link for more info: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partners/pr46/pr147/partners_pgm_concept_home.html

Here's another link that lists manufacturers and models which are compatible:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partners/pr46/pr147/partners_pgm_partners_list.html

Hope that helps.