'With this acquisition, we feel Aruba is in the best position to capture the huge market potential of wireless local area networks on the mainland,' Gary Jackson, the vice-president for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Aruba Networks, said.

Jackson said Nasdaq-listed Aruba, which recorded worldwide revenue of US$266.5 million in its financial year to July, could be on its way to record annual revenue growth of up to 60 per cent in key regional markets, namely the mainland, India, Japan and Australia.

He pointed out that the Azalea acquisition brought Aruba a new research and development centre in Beijing that will complement its laboratories in California's Silicon Valley and Bangalore in India.

It also opened up new opportunities in critical outdoor industrial applications, including the oil and gas, logistics, manufacturing, mining, petrochemical, public safety, smart grid and transportation industries.

Azalea's so-called 'mesh' wireless networking technology can carry video and voice traffic, with full fidelity, over long distances and in real time.

In a mesh network, data packets hop wirelessly from radio to radio. The value of that capability was proven during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, in which 600 Azalea mesh nodes provided voice, video and Wi-fi access over 50 square kilometres of the capital.

'The economic recovery, the need for ubiquitous connectivity, and emerging applications like smart grid and video surveillance are going to accelerate outdoor wireless infrastructure deployments by enterprises in the coming years,' Matthias Machowinski, lead analyst for enterprise voice and data at Infonetics Research, said. 'Azalea's mesh technology will enable Aruba to provide an integrated, enterprise-wide wireless infrastructure that addresses both indoor and outdoor applications.'

Azalea, which has so far shipped more than 25,000 mesh nodes worldwide, had a total customer base of 140 companies as of its acquisition date.

Its most high-profile customer has been China Mobile, the world's largest wireless network operator with 569.8 million mobile phone service subscribers as of September this year.

In November last year, China Mobile selected Azalea over larger suppliers like global networking giant Cisco Systems and mainland firm Datang Telecom Technology to provide broadband Wi-fi services in the country's major metropolitan areas.

Jackson said Aruba expected to develop its business further with the mainland's other nationwide telecommunications carriers, China Unicom and China Telecom.

'Over the next 24 months, we intend to sharpen our focus on helping service providers with their mobile data offloading projects,' Jackson said. 'The problem with many 3G networks today is that they're being clogged due to the rapidly growing use of mobile internet devices like the iPhone and iPad.'

Mobile data offloading initiatives enable mobile operators to use complementary advanced Wi-fi services for delivering data originally meant for cellular networks.

In May this year, Aruba announced that it will work with equipment supplier Alcatel-Lucent to offer mainland enterprises secure, highly reliable and cost-effective Wi-fi solutions backed by local support.

Jackson said the adoption of Azalea mesh products would be part of the growing complement of technologies included in the offerings.

Recently announced Aruba customers in China included PCCW, Xiamen Airlines, the University of Macau, and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Profits on the line

Worldwide revenue for the financial year to July hit US$266.5 million

In China, India, Japan and Australia, Aruba is on its way to record annual revenue growth of up to: 60%