Symbol Skips City WiFi Race

Already a leader in enterprise wireless, Symbol Technologies continues to develop outdoor WiFi equipment for college and business campuses. And Symbol did bid on a municipal wireless project in California. But don’t expect Symbol to jump on the MuniWireless bandwagon.

“I thought long and hard about municipal wireless and it’s not our core space,” says Chris McGugan, senior director of marketing at Symbol. “The municipal [wireless opportunity] is not something I want to go after and fight for.” A lot of municipal projects, he tells The VAR Guy, involve profit margins that are too low for technology providers. (Other MuniWireless vendors–such as Cisco, Strix Systems and Tropos Networks–would beg to differ.)

But don’t be mistaken. Symbol remains bullish on enterprise wireless, where the company continues to develop its Wireless Next Generation (Wi-NG) product platform. Symbol’s Wi-NG systems will support everything from WiFi to mesh, WiMax, VoIP and RFID. Symbol ranks among the top providers of enterprise wireless gear, according to Dell’Oro Group.