Aruba Networks Launches Indoor Wi-Fi Marketing Tools

Enterprise wireless networking firm Aruba Networks (NASDAQ:ARUN) is branching out.
The company said Tuesday it would roll-out a new indoor location-specific mobile marketing technology — Aruba Mobile Engagement.
The move will broaden the firm's addressable market beyond wireless-connectivity gear, said chief marketing officer Ben Gibson.

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"It's a significant opportunity for Aruba to sell not just Wi-Fi but a mobile app platform into different industries, like retail or large hospitality," he told IBD.
Marketing departments can use the new product to relay promotions, product location and other information in real time to mobile devices as participating customers walk store aisles or other venues.
Mobile Engagement makes use of Aruba's Wi-Fi technology and Aruba Beacons, a Bluetooth sensor technology that pinpoints the location of a customer's smartphone indoors.
Other companies offer or are looking at indoor location-based Wi-Fi products, but most are in early stages. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) created iBeacon, a spec that shows third parties how to build a Beacon that can be recognized on iPhones and iPads.
Aruba execs say that Aruba Mobile Engagement works with both Androids and iPhones.
"Where Apple stops with indoor navigation, we deliver specific product information, customer offers based on inside location and the customers' personal preferences," said Pavel Radda, an Aruba spokesman. "Retailer IT departments can remotely manage their Beacons across hundreds of physical stores."
Aruba says it already has sold the product to some customers, who are using it to varying degrees. They include Nebraska Furniture Mart, an operator of megasize home furnishing and appliance stores, and Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
Las Vegas-based Station Casinos is testing it at its Red Rock Casino and the American Museum of Natural History in New York plans to test it for use with its location-based Explorer app.
"We're working with 20 to 30 other customers in rolling out the solution," Gibson said.
Other target markets are hospitals and hotels, he says. Hospitals are already a big user of Aruba's core Wi-Fi connectivity gear. Also among its thousands of users are Starbucks' cafes, Google and Microsoft offices and numerous schools and colleges.

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