"... We immediately ordered 9 of the first beta units to try out. The technology was cheap ($50/unit) and it worked but what prevented us from going any further with it was the pricing model that they decided to adopt - $5/node/month for access to the "dashboard" - the real-time monitoring software that they were developing for managing the networks. ..."
One of the bits I didn't like about the Meraki model was the requirement for all traffic to go back through the Meraki "back-end" service. You might get free access but at the price of centralised control. Google & Sequoia are backing this effort so you have to figure how the "do-no-evil" bit fits in with the centralisation of "network analysis" ~ http://meraki.com/oursolution/hostedservices/
One of the bits I didn't like about the Meraki model was the requirement for all traffic to go back through the Meraki "back-end" service. You might get free access but at the price of centralised control. Google & Sequoia are backing this effort so you have to figure how the "do-no-evil" bit fits in with the centralisation of "network analysis" ~ http://meraki.com/oursolution/hostedservices/
One other interesting tidbit is RM is a technical advisor ~ http://meraki.com/about/