Wireless LAN Alliance Study Quantifies Return on Wireless
LAN Investment - BW, 09:03 a.m. Oct 13, 1998 Eastern
Average Time for Payback of All Costs Associated With
Wireless Local Area Networking Solution Shown To Be 8.9 Months
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 1998--
The Wireless LAN Alliance (WLANA), a consortium of leading worldwide suppliers
of wireless local area networking products and technologies, announced today the
results of a study commissioned to examine the costs and benefits associated with
actual wireless LAN installations.Major Study Findings:
-- The average time to fully pay back the initial costs of wireless
LAN installations was 8.9 months.
-- 97% of customers said that wireless LANs met or exceeded their
expectation to provide their company a competitive advantage.
-- The productivity benefits quantified were found to be 48% of the
total return on investment.
-- 92% reported "definite economic and business benefits" found
after installation.
-- 92% reported plans to continue to deploy wireless LANs in the
future. "Customers deploying wireless LANs today are adding efficiency, productivity and
competitiveness to their businesses," said Mack Sullivan, director of the Wireless LAN
Alliance. "The results of this study help to explain why the wireless LAN market is
growing at a 40%-60% annual rate and is expected to reach $1 billion by the year
2000."
"The results of this study are a powerful endorsement for this rapidly growing, $325
million segment of the wireless data industry," said Jeff Abramowitz, president of the
Wireless LAN Alliance. "Swift financial payback and high customer satisfaction
explain the continued adoption of wireless LANs in vertical markets. The overall
market dynamics combined with the productivity benefits identified in the study
strongly suggests success of adoption in the general purpose market." About the Study
The return on investment study was conducted by Tech Research, an independent
market research firm, and was sponsored by the Wireless LAN Alliance.
Comprehensive interviews were conducted with 34 companies that had a combined
total of 10,000 wireless LAN devices deployed. Customers were selected from five
industry groupings: Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing, Retail and
Office-Automation/Financial.
Costs included WLAN hardware, management expenses, application development
expenses, outsourced fees and any associated downtime expenses. The selection
criteria required each company to have a minimum of 50 wireless LAN nodes installed
for at least one year. To receive an eight-page Executive Summary of this study, please
contact Mack Sullivan, WLANA's director, at mack@wlana.com or Rich Henderson, a
representative from WLANA's public relations firm, Porchivina and Associates, at
rich@papr.com. About WLANA
The Wireless LAN Alliance is a non-profit consortium of wireless LAN vendors that
provides a clearinghouse of information about wireless local area network applications,
issues and trends. The Alliance maintains an educational web site at www.wlana.com
that includes industry white papers, application case studies and links to related topics
and member web sites. The following is a list of WLANA members, followed by a link
to their web sites: 3Com, 3com.com Aironet, aironet.com Bay
Networks Wireless LAN Group (Formerly Netwave Technologies, Inc.),
netwave-wireless.com BreezeCOM, breezecom.com Cabletron
Systems, cabletron.com Harris Semiconductor,
semi.harris.com Intermec Technologies, intermec.com Lucent
Technologies, wavelan.com Proxim, Inc., proxim.com
Raytheon Wireless Solutions, raylink.com Symbol Technologies,
symbol.com
For more information on WLANA and its educational efforts, please contact the
Wireless LAN Alliance at: 2723 Delaware Avenue, Redwood City, CA 94061, EMAIL:
info@wlana.com.
Copyright 1998, Business Wire
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