Linksys
3. Linksys
Linksys had neither new products to announce nor space in Cisco's expansive booth. But the breakfast meeting with LInksys Senior Manager of Corporate Communications Karen Sohl and P.R. Specialist Jenice Sakai let me get caught up on what's shakin' in this SOHO networking leader.
Ms. Sohl explained the Linksys now has four product focuses: Basic Networking; Monitoring & Surveillance; Entertainment Networking; and VoIP. We spent little time discussing the Basic Networking focus, other than to note that the WRT54G and BEFW11S4 11g and 11b wireless routers are its number 1 and 2 best-selling products.
In the Entertainment area, Linksys plans more products like its WMLD54G' DVD Player with Wireless-G Media Link announced back at CES (but not yet shipping). Linksys appears to be bucking the strategy of using 802.11a for multimedia and 11b/g for data that seemed to be the trend at January's CES. Sohl said that Linksys will stay with 11b and 11g for their multimedia products, explaining that 11a is "way too expensive and doesn't go through walls". Don't expect to see any Entertainment products using Ultra Wide Band wireless (UWB) either, since that technology was characterized as "more for enterprise" applications.
Turning to Monitoring and Surveillance, we can expect a fixed-position 11g successor to its $229 (suggested list) cam will be followed by a motorized pan and tilt version "later" at a yet-to-be-determined price.
Other products in the M&S focus area will include things like smoke and intrusion detection systems aimed at installers and VARs vs. consumers. I don't know what strengths Linksys brings to this product area, but it seems safe to say that this category runs little risk of cannibalizing any of parent Cisco's sales!
The last focus area - VoIP - could eat into Cisco's strong market position, but Linksys will limit the number of stations supported by its products in order to stay in its own yard. Don't look for cheap VoIP phones with the Linksys logo any time soon, though. The first product will be a $99 (or so) VoIP ATA (analog telephone adapter) that will be out "sometime this summer".
As we were wrapping up the discussion, I just had to ask why new products now seem to just show up on Linksys' website and / or in retail without announcement. The answer was that this was a deliberate decision to announce only "innovative" products to maximize market impact and save time for other marketing activities.
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