Meraki was first to announce the hosted Wi-Fi control and management model for midmarket enterprises in May with the Meraki Enterprise Wireless LAN System. This month, Aerohive said it was making its wireless LAN management tools available in the form of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) called Aerohive HiveManager Online. That announcement was followed quickly by Aruba Networks' AirWave division, which announced a SaaS called AirWave OnDemand, slated to be available in December.

Coupled with new 802.11n dual-radio access points (AP) hovering around the $700 mark, the moves could help get the ball rolling with 802.11n deployments in budget-conscious companies. They are also intended to entice integrators, resellers and carriers to use the platforms to deploy managed Wi-Fi services to enterprises, hotels, campuses and multitenant units.

Alone, the offerings from Meraki, Aerohive and Aruba's AirWave division are not managed services, but, rather, hosted services. They move management servers and appliances (and in Meraki's case, WLAN controllers) into the cloud so that you don't have to house, administer and update them. But a third party could build a full-blown managed service on top of the platforms.

Both Meraki and Aerohive have removed the controller CPE requirement at enterprise sites, albeit in different ways. While Meraki has placed the control and management functions in the cloud, Aerohive had already done away with the controller by bundling control functions into its distributed HiveAP "cooperative control" APs in its initial architecture.