Dell to Private-Label Aruba Wireless Networking Products

By Charlene O'Hanlon

Adding to its growing list of solutions to provide an end-to-end networking experience for its customers, Dell has signed an agreement with Aruba to private-label the wireless networking vendors controllers, access points and AirWave licensing management suite.

We have been working with Dell for two years with Dell reselling Aruba products, and we consider that to have been the courting period,” said Mike Tennefoss, head of strategic marketing at Aruba. This is a much deeper relationship in that we are supplying Dell with their own-branded line of products.”

The wireless products will be sold as part of the Dell PowerConnect W-Series, and will be housed in cases that are Dells standard colors, Tennefoss said. The cases also will feature a Powered by Aruba Networks logo, enabling Dell to take advantage of Arubas reputation as a reliable, secure wireless networking technology. This allows them to trade on our name but be an all-Dell branded solution,” he said.

Included in the agreement are Arubas PowerConnect W-3000 and W-600 controllers, PowerConnect W-AP92/93/105/124/125 access points and the AirWave Wireless Management Suite, a multivendor wired, wireless and mobile device management platform. The technology will remain the same between the two brands, simply the branding is different, Tennefoss said.

Despite that, Tennefoss said there is no overlap between Arubas current channel partners and Dells PartnerDirect partners, so there is little chance of any conflict between the two groups.

Bringing on Dells PartnerDirect channel partners opens up the market to Aruba, which makes this relationship actually very complementary,” he said. Weve had two years to work on any channel conflict in terms of deal registration and other measures, so really dont foresee any issues arising” from this partnership.

Tennefoss noted that Aruba actually has been training Dells sales associates and technical personnel on the Aruba product line, and expects to have 2,100 of them trained by December. They are in a great position to provide support and resources to Dells channel partners,” he said.

The Aruba deal is the latest in a series of strategic moves by Dell to build an infrastructure portfolio that creates an end-to-end networking solution for its customers. Two weeks ago the company announced a similar deal with Juniper to private-label its security appliances, and just yesterday Dell made headlines with its acquisition of virtual storage platform provider 3PAR.

This relationship helps Dell complete its ecosystem from the mobile edge to the wired edge with data systems, management and storage,” Tennefoss said.