Unstrung reports that yet another company — Airgo Networks — has a WiFi chipset for sale, after a mere three-and-a-half years of development and venture capital. Analysts are skeptical of Airgo’s chances, based on its timing relative to forthcoming high-rate wireless standards, such as 802.11n:
Ken Furer, analyst at IDC wonders whether enterprise customers are really ready for the wholesale access-point and client upgrades that would be required to take advantage of the maximum transfer speeds offered by the Airgo technology. (Products featuring the chip would be able to talk to 802.11 devices using regular ol’ chips from other vendors, but not at hyper speed).
Furer calls the Airgo silicon a “pre-n” technology, referring to the high-speed upgrade to the 802.11 standard that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) is working on (see IEEE Plots Speedier WLAN). “The market is just not ready to deal with pre-n technology,” he says. “Not with the move to dualmode [chipsets] and 802.11g that’s happening.”
Some of the engineers at Airgo are bright and capable, but the company’s managed to hit the market at the worst possible time. This is very sad.