Not a lot of things are free these days, as almost all companies try to earn additional money by selling its technologies and R&D work. Being one of the biggest IT companies in the world, Cisco does not need to force everyone to pay them, but needs to strengthen its market positions by providing some of its technologies for free in order to be sure that its upcoming comm equipment is fully compatible with third-party products.

Cisco Systems recently announced a no cost licensing agreement to enable interoperability of third-party client adapters and mobile devices with Cisco Aironet wireless local area network (LAN) infrastructure. This program, referred to as Cisco Compatible Extensions, is available to a select group of strategic silicon suppliers producing both embedded and stand-alone wireless LAN designs. The list includes Agere Systems, Atheros, Atmel, Intel, Intersil, Marvell and Texas Instruments that together comprise over 90% of wireless LAN designs in the market today ranging from embedded modules in notebook and desktop PCs, PDAs, cellular handsets and industrial terminals to stand-alone products like PC Card, PCI and Compact Flash client adapters, according to IDC.

Through the Cisco Compatible Extensions program, Cisco offers a no cost licensing of innovative Aironet features for integration into client adapters and, ultimately, mobile devices. After extensive interoperability testing with Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure, the adapter or device is granted the right to bear the Cisco Compatible brand signifying that it provides support for the full set of Cisco Compatible Extension features, Cisco Compatible Extensions Version 1 will include:

• Full standards compliance with Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11;
• Compliance with Cisco Wireless Security Suite;
• Compatibility with Cisco's scheme for assigning wireless LAN clients to virtual LANs (VLANs).

To drive innovation through pre-standard capabilities while leading emerging industry standards, Cisco will introduce new, expanded versions of Cisco Compatible Extensions on a regular basis. Cisco Compatible Extensions Version 2, which will be released to partners in the next 30-60 days, will include support for:

• The IEEE 802.1X authentication type PEAP, and compliance with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) when using various IEEE 802.1X authentication types, including the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) type - Cisco LEAP;
• New Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure capabilities that improve roaming performance and wireless LAN management.

The Cisco’s move will help all the companies mentioned here to rapidly develop and bring to the market a lot of compatible devices. Cisco and industry will both benefit from it.