WLANs: What They Mean For SMBs

January 16th, 2007

Chris Silva

With contributors:

Christine Atwood , Simon Yates

Summary

As part of Forrester's Business Technographics research for 2006, Forrester surveyed 818 network equipment decision-makers and 521 mobile technologies and services decision-makers at North American small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) about their wireless local area network (WLAN) adoption plans. We found that, not surprisingly, the larger SMBs have the most interest in wireless networks — and that they are focusing their investments first on data networks before looking into those for voice. Given SMBs' focus on data networks, vendors must market solutions to SMBs that speak to the need for robust capabilities yet minimize management and deployment complexity and come at a reasonable cost. More cutting-edge technologies such as integrated voice and data networking products and those products taking advantage of new standards may resonate with the smallest segment of SMBs, which are more prone to use voice over WLAN, and mirror consumers in adoption of wireless networking technology.

Want to read the full report?

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.