Linksys
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Networking equipment |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Founder |
Victor Tsao Janie Tsao |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California, United States |
| Products | Hubs, Routers, DSL/Cable Gateways, Switches, Wireless Access Points, Storage and security IP cameras |
|
Number of employees
|
700+ (as of March 2007[update]) |
| Parent |
Cisco Systems (2003–2013) Belkin (2013–present) |
| Website | www |
Linksys is an American company selling data networking hardware products mainly to home users and small businesses. Its products include wired and wireless routers, Ethernet switches, VoIP equipment, wireless Internet video cameras, audio visual products and network storage systems.
Linksys was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. They were purchased by Cisco in 2003, and sold to Belkin, the current owners, in 2013. Its products were branded as Linksys by Cisco when it was part of Cisco.
Belkin has kept the Linksys brand and released new products under its name since acquiring it.
Linksys products are sold to consumers off-the-shelf from consumer electronics stores, Internet retailers, and big-box retail stores such as supermarkets. Significant competitors in the home and small business networking market segment include D-Link, TP-Link and Netgear.
In 1988, the married couple Janie and Victor Tsao founded DEW International, later renamed Linksys, in the garage of their Irvine, California home. The founders were immigrants from Taiwan who held second jobs as consultants specializing in pairing American technology vendors with manufacturers in Taiwan. The company's first products were printer sharers that connected multiple PCs to printers. From this it expanded into Ethernet hubs, network cards, and cords. By 1994, it had grown to 55 employees with annual revenues of $6.5 million.
The company received a major boost in 1995, when Microsoft released Windows 95 with built-in networking functions that expanded the market for its products. Linksys established its first U.S. retail channels with Fry's Electronics (1995) and Best Buy (1996). In 1999, the company announced the first Fast Ethernet PCMCIA Card for notebook PCs. In 2000, it introduced the first 8-port router with and QoS, and in 2001 it shipped its millionth cable/DSL router. By 2003, when the company was acquired by Cisco, it had 305 employees and revenues of more than $500 million. That was also the sum paid by Cisco for the company.
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Wikipedia