“When it comes to doing acquisitions, networking giant Cisco Systems has long been known as high-tech’s leading shopaholic. But when it forked over $500 million for Irvine (Calif.)-based Linksys Group in March, 2003, many industry insiders held their breath… ‘Linksys has exceeded our expectations in financial terms,’ says Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers,” WJAC-TV reports. Now, Cisco is cranking up its plans for Linksys. Chambers says it will use the Linksys brand on a growing portfolio of low-end products, both for consumers and increasingly for the medium- and small-business market.”
Linksys founder Victor Tsao recently spoke with BusinessWeek computer editor Peter Burrows about past successes and where he sees Linksys — and consumer electronics in general — headed in the future. An excerpt from their conversation touched on Apple Computer:
Q: How do you view Apple’s role in this market? They have their own wireless-network product, the Airport Express, and many Apple watchers expect the company to try to take a leadership role in creating the digital living room of the future. Have you talked to them about working together to have products such as the iPod work with other devices in the home?
A: I really view Apple as a potential partner. The iPod is obviously a very good design. But at the end of the day it has to be a networked device. Linksys does most of the home-networking infrastructure for consumers. If we can partner together, we can give [consumers] such a good experience. In the future, there are a lot of areas where we can work together. This market is huge. Let’s face it: No one player can dominate the whole thing.
Full article here.
Related articles:
Apple unveils AirPort Express for Mac & PC Users; World’s First 802.11g mobile base station features – June 07, 2004
I have a Linksys router. It’s on loan from my employer, who gives them out so we can log into their VPN with our company laptops. I had no problem hooking it up with my Mac. I did have some initial difficulties using the Web-based admin screens, but I worked around them, first by using iCab (of all things), then by tweaking the URL to get around the funky redirect Safari couldn’t handle.
I bought a router this week. Netgear. Why ? Because Netgear is good and they support Macs.
Linksys does not yet deserve my money.
LinkSys might like to partner with Apple (duh!), but why would Apple want to partner with LinkSys?
Their products aren’t all that good anyhow.
Recently I had to buy a PCI wireless card, and only found one that worked with Macs – a Belkin 802.11G. It came with a software CD and a 40 page manual for Windows, but for Mac OS X it simply said “use Airport software,” which of course I already had. Nice product. None of the others mentioned here had any models that worked with Macs.
Until we hear something from Apple, I’d say this is no more meaningful than Dell wanting OS X.
macaholic,
Specify which model you were using. TFTP firmware updates categorically do not work with my WIRED (and wireless) version using my Mac and browser (as inteneded). It’s fine with a PC. As theloniousMac has mentioned, LinkSys has crappy (rather anti-) Mac support.
And BTW, why should I have to download another tool? Why can’t Linksys make upgrades work with the tools Apple provides? They do with PCs….
Sorry, not trying to make a federal case out of this. But the Linksys guy waxing euphoric about wanting to work with Apple should start by making their current policy more Mac-friendly.
I’ll give MacTFTP a try.