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HP acquires Aruba, focus on indoor location tech

Wow. What does it mean when a giant company like HP acquires networking giant Aruba, and the 3rd paragraph of the Forbes article on the subject discusses indoor location technology:

With Aruba Networks contributing roughly $800 million to $1 billion in wireless revenue, the acquisition would only a small increase to the new HP Enterprise company’s revenue base. However, it would bolster HP’s overall networking market share and provide a newer platform to support the best wave of mobility services. Aruba made several important acquisitions over the past two years that has positioned the company to support the future of WLAN growth. It acquired Meridian in 2013.  Meridian uses Wi-Fi triangulation to determine location indoors where GPS signals can’t penetrate  but also offers tools to build apps for businesses that want location-awareness as part of their mobile offering... This market is different from simply delivering connectivity. It delivers indoor location services and supports contextual identity based on the person, the device, the location and the type of traffic.
Indoor location technology is clearly on the radar screen of giants, as much as Aruba's $1B in revenue and their huge market share.

You can read more about Meridian's indoor location technology here, and about Aruba's acquisition of Meridian here. Aruba has added new beacon technology to the Meridian base since those articles were written. Interestingly, HP themselves revealed some R&D recently on network-based indoor location technology. Details of the latest technology from Aruba, Meridian and HP is profiled in the recently updated report on indoor location technology.

Looks like indoor location technology is gaining in significance every day!


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