Linksys' Hustle Pays Off Big
The San Jose Mercury News is running the story of Linksys – a company that was founded in a garage by a husband and wife team (though, the husband kept his other day job for a few years), and eventually went on to be the leading supplier of home routers – and now has been sold to Cisco for half a billion dollars. It’s yet another story of a company giving consumers what they want, rather than complaining about how changing standards or the market is damaging their business model. One example of this is how they quickly put out an 802.11g product – despite the standard not being set yet. I still wonder if that was a smart long-term move, as there are risks involved – and I think the promotions for 802.11g products right now are misleading to consumers. However, they’ve certainly sold a lot of them, and beaten most of their competitors to market.
