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Linksys to resume building network hardware for small- to medium-size businesses
   
      
      
         



   

If Cisco thought it was unloading a consumer brand that no longer fit with its enterprise focus by selling its Linksys business unit to Belkin, Cisco’s in for a surprise: Belkin is embarking on an ambitious campaign to once again make Linksys a major player in the SMB networking market.


“Linksys had been successfully selling SMB infrastructure products into the marketplace for more than 20 years,” said Ben Thacker, global vice president of Belkin enterprise business. “Linksys was one of the largest suppliers of switches and routers into the 5- to 99-seat environment. Now under the Belkin International organization we know the Linksys brand can be successful again catering to this environment.”


Indeed, Linksys had significant shares of both the consumer and SMB markets when Cisco acquired it in 2003. But Cisco rebadged Linksys’s business-oriented hardware as Cisco products and used the Linksys brand solely for consumer devices. A source inside Linksys, however, tells me that many of the Linksys business-unit engineers remained and came over to Belkin as part of the acquisition.

Belkin initial SMB offerings will include Linksys-branded gigabit unmanaged ethernet switches, ranging from 5 to 24 ports in size.

Belkin, meanwhile, is best known as a consumer-electronics manufacturer, selling cables, smartphone and tablet cases, outlet strips, webcams, and simple home-automation devices. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Belkin has a robust line of business-oriented products, too, ranging from KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) hardware for controlling rack-mounted servers to the hulking racks those servers are mounted into.
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http://www.macworld.com/article/2056148/linksys-to-resume-building-network-hardware-for-small-to-medium-size-businesses.html#tk.rss_all