Zeidan's main goal for 2007 is to crack Saudi

The regional manager for wireless networking vendor Trapeze Networks touched base in Riyadh last month with the declaration that ‘the Kingdom is my top priority.’ Zeidan, who only recently joined Trapeze as it looks to build regional operations, has been tasked with building up a select group of system integrators with experience in the networking arena. With Saudi falling under his remit, Zeidan has already entered into preliminary talks with a number of local names active in the channel.

While Cisco and Aruba, Trapeze’s rivals in the wireless space, have already established Saudi channels, Zeidan is confident that his offerings can more than sell themselves.

“We OEM for a number of multinationals, including the likes of Motorola. Our strength is that we are focused on one area, and Trapeze has already notched up wins in the region. I’m confident that we can do the same here and bring on partners for the likes of HP ProCurve, Juniper and other networking vendors who want to complete their infrastructure offerings,” explained Zeidan.

Zeidan has already had success in smaller markets like the UAE, where Trapeze’s new regional manager has added a number of strong networking players, including East Meets West. With a growing number of installations around the region, Trapeze should prove to be a major challenger to both Cisco and Aruba moving forward into 2008.

Trapeze Networks demonstrated its newly developed range of Smart Mobile products, including its latest Mobility Point 432 (MP-432) access point, at Gitex last month. “We can offer the industry’s highest performance enterprise-class access point for high-bandwidth 802.11n networks, and this was well received during Gitex,” added Zeidan.

“What Trapeze Networks has here is the very first enterprise level draft 2.0 version for the 802.11n standard wireless protocol. Customers will not only enjoy backwards compatibility with legacy protocols including a/b/g, but they’ll also be able to ensure their systems are futureproof for the coming years,” added Zeidan.

Trapeze also exhibited its high-capacity MX-2800 Controller, which Zeidan claims is the highest-capacity controller available for a WLAN network. Capable of delivering 28Gbps of throughput via two10-Gigabit and eight 1-Gigabit ports, the MX- 2800 will be joined by another of Trapeze’s recent launches, the Advanced Mobility System Software (MSS) for managing and optimizing wireless network performance.

“Trapeze is committed to leadership in the wireless space, and with this lineup of products I’m certain that we will quickly capture a large share of the networking market very quickly in Saudi Arabia. All we need now is dedicated channel partners who know how to sell a complete solution to end users,” concluded Zeidan.