I’ll get right to the point- I did something silly, but explainable- and hope to head off anyone else from doing the same. I THREW OUT MY CARD FOR A FREE FORTINET (Meru) ACCESS POINT.
Don’t you do the same!
Why did I trash the opportunity to get a free access point? The answer is simple, but flawed.
I’ve known Meru through the years as a competitor to Cisco, Aruba, etc. when it comes to wireless. Meru was bought by Fortinet back in 2015, and generally fell off of my own radar. Fast forward to WLPC 2018…
Fortiru graciously offered a free cloud-managed FAP-S313C AP to all WLPC attendees, all you need to do is send in the card that was in your swag bag. But in my mind I thought this:
I don’t want to register yet another free AP, license the thing for a year for free, then either renew the license at my cost (ain’t happening) or throw it on the pile with all of the others that have come before it… Meru competes with everyone else that all license the hell out of everything and therefor Fortiru must be license-happy as well.
Did any other conference attendees think this as well?
To my chagrin- and this is something that Fortinet ought to market the absolute hell out of- there are no licenses needed for APs in the Fortiverse. Start the cloud account for free, register the AP for free, and enjoy the goodness into perpetuity. That’s not only generous to WLPC attendees, it’s also a huge differentiator for marketing and TCO.
I had the pleasure of talking recently with long-time industry friend Chris Hinsz, now the Director of Product Marketing for Wireless at Fortinet, who set me straight on the no-license thing.
Now you know!
wirednot 
Also, this is not a Meru AP — its an next generation cloud managed Fortinet proper AP — no single channel architecture with this bad boy… C’mon Lee, don’t be so dismissive of a great offer and quick to judge – it’s just laziness!
Hi Lou, I did end up seeing the light… just needed to get over myself. It was the license thing (which there isn’t) that turned me off more than the thought of SCA.
Actually, I was kind of bummed that it didn’t have an SC option. I would have bought more APs just to build an SC environment.
Sidenote, Single Channel APs are also proper APs 😉
That was one of my thoughts as well, but is also interesting to have a reason to look into Fortinet WiFi. Totally new to me.
Feel free to reach out Lee with anything regarding Fortinet wireless, we love the fact that we live in an AP license free world here ….!
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We in Europe never got ours.