Redington Gulf to distribute Trapeze Networks products in the Middle East & Africa

Under this tie-up, Redington will be the "Master Distributor" of Trapeze Networks' WLAN products in the Middle East and Africa.

Trapeze Networks is a global leader in WLAN technology catering to small, medium and large enterprises with more than 3000 large enterprises worldwide using its proven WLAN technology. A wireless LAN or WLAN is a wireless local area network, which is the linking of two or more computers or devices without using wires.

WLAN uses technology based on radio waves to enable communication between devices in a limited area, also known as the basic service set. This gives users the mobility to move around within a broad coverage area and still be connected to the network.

Trapeze is known for providing uninterrupted seamless mobility to the enterprise workforce and meet the requirements of network managers, IT staff and the users within that organization. Its WLAN technology increases the productivity of the mobile workforce by providing immediate access to applications and information regardless of location or device.

Redington will help Trapeze grow the WLAN business in the MEA region through its vast channel base, logistics and financial capabilities. The tie-up will help Redington to grow its market share in the wireless segment. Redington currently distributes products for global giants such as Avaya, HP Procurve, Trend Micro and Sonicwall.

Mr. Ramkumar Balakrishnan, General Manager - Value Business, Redington Gulf, said: "The tie-up with Trapeze is a very strategic one for Redington. It is in line with our endeavor to offer more value add solutions to enterprise customers in the MEA region. Our internal research shows a very strong demand for WLAN products considering the booming economies of MEA and the change in operational styles of the workforce."

"Small, medium and large companies in the MEA region are emulating their Western counterparts and they want their workforce to be more productive, having access to the corporate network at any given point in time and that too from anywhere. At Redington we are fully prepared to deploy WLAN technologies in the MEA markets with the solid backing of Trapeze technology. Over last three years, the value division of Redington has grown by more than 100% year-on-year and with the Trapeze tie-up we are poised for further growth."

MEA region to benefit from WLAN:

Convenience: The wireless nature of such WLAN networks allows users to access network resources from nearly any convenient location within their primary networking environment (home or office).

Mobility: With the emergence of public wireless networks, users can access the internet even outside their normal work environment. Most chain coffee shops, for example, offer their customers a wireless connection to the internet at little or no cost.

Productivity: Users connected to a wireless network can maintain a nearly constant affiliation with their desired network as they move from place to place. For a business, this implies that an employee can potentially be more productive as his or her work can be accomplished from any convenient location.

Deployment: Initial setup of an infrastructure-based wireless network requires little more than a single access point. Wired networks, on the other hand, have the additional cost and complexity of actual physical cables being run to numerous locations (which can even be impossible for hard-to-reach locations within a building).

Expandability: Wireless networks can serve a suddenly-increased number of clients with the existing equipment. In a wired network, additional clients would require additional wiring.

Cost: Wireless networking hardware is at worst a modest increase from wired counterparts. This potentially increased cost is almost always more than outweighed by the savings in cost and labor associated to running physical cables.