Wireless is hard. When you’re putting together large deployments of access points in challenging environments with tons of security on top of it all you realize the difficulty. That’s why most major wireless deployments require a lot of time, planning, and documentation to pull off correctly. But what if things are on the small side?

A Small World Without Wires

The average small business (SMB) is stuck in a wireless limbo. They have requirements that far exceed the performance profile of standard consumer wireless devices. Most SMBs have more than three or four devices connecting at a time. They have reliability issues that need to be dealt with. And they need it all in a package that doesn’t need constant minding to work appropriately.

When you look at the market for consumer wireless today, the real push is to get rid of any configuration at all. Even the old Apple Airport, which was simplistic in its day, is too “complicate” for modern users. Solutions like Google Wifi aim to be the kind of solution that just requires a cable plugged in. No additional configuration beyond that. Which works wonders if you’re a consumer at home that needs to enable some tablets and a smart TV. But for businesses, there needs to be a level of control above that.

At the same time, wireless solutions for SMBs need to offer a limited choice of options. When you give someone a huge list of choices with no real direction on how to use them, you get something I’ve started calling Freestyle Syndrome, after the infamous Coke Freestyle machines. Too many choices cause indecision. Even Coke has finally figured this out by creating guides on the first page of the machine to guide people to Low Calorie options or Fruit Flavored drinks. They realize that the best way to give people tons of choices is to artificially limit those choices in such a way as to give the average user more direction on how to use them.

Buzzing With Opportunity

Enter the newest offering from Aerohive. Announced yesterday, Aerohive has a new 2×2:2 AP on the market, the AP 122. They are combining this new AP with a unique software offering, Aerohive Connect. Aerohive Connect solves the above issues with by providing enhanced capabilities for SMBs without overwhelming them wth pointless options.

Aerohive Connect is a version of the HiveManager software that is optimized to deliver the features that most SMBs need. Included is basic RF planning to find the best place to put your APs, guided deployment and configuration to ensure that you set those APs up correctly, and health monitoring to make sure they are working correctly into the future. You also get features to help create guest access networks to keep your traffic segmented between employees and customers.

What you don’t get with Aerohive Connect is some of the more advanced features of deploying multiple branch sites, advanced security profiles, and other advanced enterprise features of HiveManager. That’s how Aerohive is able to provide these features at a lower price point to stay attractive for SMBs.

Another thing that you won’t see from Aerohive is something common to other solutions like this. Instead of pushing you into “upgrading” to a full-featured version of the software by limiting the number of APs that can be connected, Aerohive Connect does not have a limit on the number of connected APs. You can use it with 2 APs or 25 APs with no limits. If the basic feature set is all you ever need, that’s all you’ll ever pay for. There’s no hidden uplift to recover costs, which essentially turns the SMB solution into an extended trial.

Tom’s Take

As far as solutions for SMBs go, I think Aerohive is on track with Aerohive Connect. They are giving a reduced feature offering that’s perfect for the target market with none of the traditional “gotchas” that I see from other solutions that are simply trying to upset users into a more expensive and more useless solution. Rather than trying to get the mom-and-pop convenience store chain on a full-blown enterprise wireless control system, why not target them with the best solution for them rather than a one-size-fits-all-but-not-really offering?

I think Aerohive is going to get a lot of traction with Aerohive Connect in the market. I will be curious to get an update from them in the coming months to see just how popular things have become.