The selection this year may well end up defining the product type going forward.

Wireless, is it? Everything is going wireless - well almost everything. That, in itself, poses a challenge for a wireless security company, such as this innovator. It also offers big opportunities and AirMagnet has identified and addressed them.

If you thought the UTM market was crowded, take a look at the intrusion prevention systems (IPS) market. We bluntly asked our innovator in this product space why they thought that they were innovators in such a commoditized market. The answer was immediate and unambiguous: "When a product category becomes mainstream, there are big opportunities, but you must innovate to take advantage of them."

Sometimes a different approach is needed. The notion of the UTM was developed from the need to consolidate point solutions. There are a lot of problems, of course. They cost more to buy and manage, they use more power and they need a sophisticated staff to manage them.

One might view this traditional category as slowly fading from view as the perimeter becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. In fact, there are an ample number of pundits who opine exactly that. But if we ask our innovators about the loss of the perimeter, they will tell you that there are always new perimeters. It's not that the perimeter is disappearing, they say. It's that its nature is changing.