GilesGuthrie
Staff Emeritus
- 11,038
- Edinburgh, UK
- CMDRTheDarkLord
Cisco have clearly woken up to the potential to make money from SOHO networking, particularly with wireless (WLAN), after spending £381m buying Linksys, the provider of low-cost networking solutions.
A scan through Linksys's product list shows clear rationale for the move. Linksys make WLAN access points and network cards, but where they're particularly strong is in their 'combo' devices, such as the wireless print server, and the Wireless Access Point Router with Switch, one of which is sitting on my desk as I write. I also know of a number of other GTP members who use them, including Jordan, and all who have them seem very happy, apart from Tom M, who has a tendency to make his burst into flames.
There is some scepticism in the home user market however. Cisco DOES market existing WLAN products, but they're not Wi-Fi certified since they use proprietary protocols. Anyone who's ever tried to get a handle on Cisco IOS (Internetwork Operating System), which is in all their routers, would understand the fear. IOS is impenetrable, and a far cry from the simple, web-based interface offered in Linksys devices. It's an interesting merger, and I believe that Linksys will benefit from the robustness of Cisco products, whilst Cisco will benefit from covering a larger area of the market. The Linksys brand will be retained.
With this, plus the upcoming ratification of 802.11g (the 55Mb WLAN protocol), things are interesting for wireless right now.
A scan through Linksys's product list shows clear rationale for the move. Linksys make WLAN access points and network cards, but where they're particularly strong is in their 'combo' devices, such as the wireless print server, and the Wireless Access Point Router with Switch, one of which is sitting on my desk as I write. I also know of a number of other GTP members who use them, including Jordan, and all who have them seem very happy, apart from Tom M, who has a tendency to make his burst into flames.
There is some scepticism in the home user market however. Cisco DOES market existing WLAN products, but they're not Wi-Fi certified since they use proprietary protocols. Anyone who's ever tried to get a handle on Cisco IOS (Internetwork Operating System), which is in all their routers, would understand the fear. IOS is impenetrable, and a far cry from the simple, web-based interface offered in Linksys devices. It's an interesting merger, and I believe that Linksys will benefit from the robustness of Cisco products, whilst Cisco will benefit from covering a larger area of the market. The Linksys brand will be retained.
With this, plus the upcoming ratification of 802.11g (the 55Mb WLAN protocol), things are interesting for wireless right now.
