This past May, Hewlett Packard completed it acquisition of Aruba Networks, a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise, to secure the company’s goals of unifying wired and wireless access for the enterprise.

Dominic Orr, SVP and GM at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (HPE), joined John Furrier and Dave Vellante, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during HPE Discover 2015 London to discuss the trends and the importance of wireless connectivity.

Reinventing the ‘Happy Meal’

When asked to comment on the evolution of wireless, Orr explained how 12 years ago, Wi-Fi complemented Ethernet as a port extender over the air.

“Wi-Fi was like fries with the burger,” he said. “There has been a fundamental shift since the introduction of the iPad, the iPhone and Android devices. The Happy Meal formula shifted, and now Wi-Fi is the burger and Ethernet is the fries to supporting the infrastructure.”

Today, the focus in Wi-Fi is on high density, roaming and supporting multimedia traffic. Orr believes deep-packet inspection will become the prevalent technology in the wireless world in managing wireless traffic. According to Orr, it is essential for the access point to be aware of the traffic it is carrying and have the ability to throttle traffic that is not real-time sensitive.

The value exceeds the ticket price

The intrinsic value of Wi-Fi is not necessarily in the service itself. Orr described it as the stable layer of structured air that brings in recurring revenue from smart interfaces, customer engagement and analytics. “You can achieve recurring revenue on the software aspect if you are careful when designing the whole system,” he explained.

He pointed to the HP merger as bringing the value proposition full circle because the product profile offers them the ability to capture the whole dollar, where as a stand-alone company it was earning 30 to 35 cents on the dollar.

The future of IoT and wireless relationship

When discussing the future of IoT, wireless networks have a direct correlation. “Things will no longer be things when the battery runs out,” Orr asserted. He is seeing a trend toward Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, as the standard of connectivity. He also said that the two dominating subjects surrounding IoT connectivity will be increasing manageability and security.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of HPE Discover 2015 — London. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting live with theCUBE hosts during the event.

Photo by SiliconANGLE