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CHICAGO--Colubris Networks is getting in on the WLAN switch market--sort of. Company officials said today they are releasing their own WLAN multiservice controller to compete with the likes of Aruba Networks, Trapeze Networks and Cisco’s Airespace. However, Colubris is taking a different approach.

Instead of centralizing all of the intelligence of network into a single box, Colubris is still maintaining its distributed architecture, keeping data at the access point, while centralizing control and management at the switch. The architecture keeps the network scalable, allowing a single controller to support as many as 200 access points and thousands of users without creating data bottlenecks, said Carl Blume, director of product marketing for Colubris.

”The typical WLAN switch funnels all of the intelligence into the switch, leaving you with a bunch of dumb access points,” Blume said.

While Colubris is one of the world leaders in WLAN infrastructure, it has seen heavy competition from the WLAN switch vendors, whose multiservice controllers have been picked up by many OEMs. The business case for the switch was reinforced when Cisco announced it would acquire Airspace earlier this year, signaling it would begin moving intelligence away from the access point to the controller.

Colubris will launch two products: the InMotion MultiService Controller 5500, designed for large enterprises, and the MSC 5200 designed for smaller offices and remote locations but with the capability of supporting up to 25 access points. Because intelligence is still being regulated to the access points, Colubris is looking to undercut the switch prices of its competitors, Blume saying the vendor will charge almost a third less. The MSC 5200 will list for about $4800 while the MSC 5500 will list for about $16000.

Colubris also revealed today that it has completed the interoperability testing with Avaya, and is now one of the vendor’s DevConnect Strategic Partners. Though the two haven’t yet announced a joint customer, Avaya is now marketing Colubris’ product line to its customers.