Summary

The Wireless product team is pleased to announce that, with the addition of Usage Insights in our recent Sophos Central release, our AP6 series access points have reached full feature parity with the APX series. This allows you to finally position the AP6 series with all of its strengths (and additional features), rather than discussing feature differences.

Usage Insights: The Final Piece of the Puzzle

Usage Insights provides valuable visibility into wireless network usage patterns, including:

• Application bandwidth consumption over a period of 24h or 7 days
• New for AP6: Top five APs, SSIDs, and clients (devices)
• Peak usage times and potential bottlenecks

With this addition, you can now confidently position AP6 series access points as the upgrade path for all customers, without any feature compromises.

While Synchronized Security was available for APX, with Active Threat Response for AP6, we’re taking a different approach to cross-product integration, which we plan to expand in future releases.

Selling the Benefits of Wi-Fi 6/6E

You can now focus your sales conversations entirely on the compelling benefits of upgrading to AP6:

• Superior Wi-Fi 6/Wi-Fi 6E performance with up to 4x capacity improvements
• Enhanced security integration with our ecosystem through Active Threat Response
• Simplified management via our cloud-based management platform

Remember to position our current Wi-Fi 6E promo See the promo flyer for further details

 

Wireless: The Perfect Firewall Companion

Wireless access points represent one of our top-selling attach opportunities to firewall deals. Every firewall conversation should include wireless and switches. The integrated security story—from edge to endpoint—resonates strongly with customers seeking simplified management and enhanced protection. Customers who switch their Wi-Fi management to Sophos Central benefit from a platform that unifies all of our next-gen security solutions. The proof: every one of our largest wireless customers manages their access points in Sophos Central AND has Sophos Firewall.

Massive Wireless Upgrade Opportunity

Our install base analysis reveals that about two-thirds of deployed access points are one or more generations behind.

These legacy deployments represent a significant opportunity for you to drive refresh conversations based on:

• End-of-support timelines approaching (APX EOL Dec 2027) or lapsed (AP EOL Dec 2023) for older models
• Security risks associated with using unsupported products (remember Pacific Rim?)
• Performance limitations with modern applications

Recent Feature Additions Worth Highlighting

The Usage Insights feature caps a series of important additions to the AP6 platform over recent months:

Dynamic VLAN for RADIUS

This feature allows the RADIUS server to dynamically assign clients to specific VLANs based on authentication attributes. For example, a guest user and an employee authenticating to the same SSID can be automatically placed in different network segments based on their credentials. This simplifies network design while maintaining strong security segmentation.

Other Notable Recent Additions:

• Multi-site mesh configuration and improved mesh setup
• Power over Ethernet statistics and alert
• Guest voucher workflow and general enhancements
• Clone APX SSID for AP6 configuration

Next Steps

1. Review your customer base for upgrade opportunities
   1. Customer is not ready to upgrade: The APX Series is supported in Sophos Central and requires no license.
      • To extend an existing deployment, there is some remaining stock that can be sold at a discount.
   2. Customer on EOL hardware: The AP Series has been EOL since 2023; all customers on this unsupported platform should urgently upgrade.
2. Schedule refresh conversations with legacy wireless customers.
3. Ask about wireless in every firewall and switch conversation.
4. Leverage our updated licensing guide/feature matrix and the updated competitive comparison guides.

The AP6 series is now our most compelling wireless offering ever; fully integrated into our ecosystem and offering a feature-rich experience. Let’s make the most of this opportunity!

Further Resources

• Partner Portal Asset Library
  • Licensing Guide/Feature Matrix
  • Updated Wireless master slide deck