Cisco's Linksys phase-out moving along

by Stephen Lawson

April 15, 2008 —

CORRECTION: This story incorrectly identified where Cisco Systems Chairman and CEO John Chambers made a comment. He made the comment to European media at the Networkers event in Anaheim, California. The story has been corrected below.

Cisco Systems' Linksys
brand may disappear sooner than expected, according to a top executive for small
business at the company, although he wouldn't say how quickly.

The company sells networking gear for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)
under both the Cisco and Linksys brands, which has created some confusion, vice
president of SMB Solutions Marketing Rick Moran acknowledged in an interview
on Monday. Linksys was a successful vendor of home and SMB networking gear that
Cisco acquired in 2003. There are routers, wireless LANs and other products
under both brands that are aimed at small enterprises.

Chairman and CEO John Chambers said last year during a roundtable with European media, captured in a YouTube video, that Linksys would disappear under the Cisco brand over time. Linksys followed up by saying its brand wasn't going anywhere in the near term.

Cisco had already moved to allow
its SMB channel partners to sell both Cisco and Linksys products, starting
about a year ago, but in the process found out most of them didn't want to carry
both, Moran said. Those that sold Cisco gear weren't interested in selling the
simpler Linksys products because they wanted to sell their customers system
integration services, and Linksys resellers were more geared toward selling
individual products, he said.

Now Cisco is working to clear up the confusion by modifying its SMB Web site
and having Cisco and Linksys product teams work more closely together, Moran
said. Their product road maps are now aligned, he said. But there will still
be an evolution toward one brand.

"It will be shorter than you think," Moran said. The evolution is
likely to happen first outside the U.S., where Linksys products are sold but
Cisco hasn't spent any money building up that brand, he added.

The Linksys brand ultimately will be replaced by a product category, similar
to the Catalyst series of switches or WebEx conferencing services, which Cisco
acquired last year, he said. The company has worked out how to do so without
"orphaning" the Linksys name, according to Moran. Cisco won't leave
any of the channels that now carry its SMB products: retail, distributors, small
value-added resellers and service providers. The key difference will remain
support.

"We need a definition to say there's a difference in the support model
that goes behind them," Moran said. Cisco products are known for extensive
support, while Linksys gear is designed for ease of use out of the box.

Also on Monday, Moran said the SMB market is "a challenge" in the
ailing U.S. economy, but that Cisco has gained elsewhere from the relative weakness
of the dollar. And his own research has shown that over the past 40 years, small
businesses have led recoveries in both the U.S. and Europe.

"The first people to slow down spending are SMBs, but the first people
to start back, even before the recovery is noticeable, are small businesses,"
he said.

IDG News Service