Fortinet launches new next-gen Intelligent Wi-fi in Thailand

The Wi-Fi technology belongs to Meru Networks, a leader in intelligent Wi-Fi networking, which was acquired by Fortinet in May 2015.

The acquisition broadens the company’s solutions portfolio, and expands its opportunity to uniquely address the $5B global enterprise Wi-Fi market with integrated and intelligent secure wireless solutions, Fortinet said in a press statement.

Easy and efficient deployment, flexibility and scalability are factors that favor Wi-Fi based solutions, the press statement affirmed.

Along with these factors, the bring your own device (BYOD) concept has brought the power of convenient connectivity and efficiency to end-users who have come to expect secure access to their enterprise network, regardless of location.  All of this has driven widespread adoption of Wi-Fi by enterprises of every size. 

However, this expansion of the network to unknown and untrusted mobile devices creates significant IT security risks amidst the most dangerous cyber threat environment enterprises have ever experienced. 

The addition of Meru’s intelligent Wi-Fi solutions to the Fortinet portfolio extends the delivery of a secure, uninterrupted user experience – anytime anywhere – providing peak performance in environments requiring high capacity load and a high-density of wireless users, such as enterprise, education, healthcare, and hospitality, the press statement said.

 

Meru’s broad solution set includes: 

- Access points that deliver wireless connectivity to support data, voice, and video applications with superior performance, low latency and reliability.

- Controllers to optimize wireless traffic across access points and client devices meeting mission-critical enterprise demands for wireless connectivity.

- SDN enabled Wi-Fi system software that seamlessly manages and secures wired and wireless LANs, as well as efficiently provisions Wi-Fi enabled end-user devices.

- Cloud and virtual wireless controllers and appliances that provide unprecedented choice and flexibility in deploying and scaling wireless infrastructure, whether through a data center or private cloud environment. 

“The acquisition of Meru Networks maps to our overall security vision of combining strong network security with ubiquitous connectivity,” said Ken Xie, founder, chairman and CEO of Fortinet. “We expect this to accelerate our innovation through the delivery of new solutions and services to help enterprises of all sizes deploy, manage and secure wired and wireless networks in a mobile era. We believe the extension of our market-leading end-to-end security platform will increase our growth opportunities and benefit our customers and partners globally.” 

The acquisition of Meru Networks adds an experienced research and engineering team to help accelerate Fortinet’s strategy to secure and manage wired and wireless devices together at any entry point to the network. 

In addition, Meru’s portfolio of more than 33 awarded patents and 35 pending patents bolsters Fortinet’s more than 210 issued and allowed patents worldwide, and over 165 pending patent applications, and represent innovation that will benefit the more than 14,000 Meru customers and 210,000 Fortinet customers worldwide. 

Peerapong Jongvibool, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam Country Manager of Fortinet International Inc. said, “The acquisition of Meru Networks is considered a major advancement of security technology for Thai and Indochina markets. Thanks to intelligent wi-fi technology, the innovative single channel architecture especially the 4th generation hybrid version is very unique and new. The users in high-dense area with high capacity load such as enterprise, education and healthcare can use the internet impressively seamless. The appliance well supports the cloud and high speed platforms; therefore, it is perfect for Thailand and neighboring countries to integrate them into the wireless 3G/4G broadband infrastructure.”