Cisco Pushes Linksys Brand Out of SMB Switches
Enterprise networkers know Cisco as the go-to company for high end gear, but this week the company is continuing its push into the low end market.
Enterprise networkers know Cisco as the go-to company for high end gear, but this week the company is continuing its push into the low end market by supplanting its Linksys brand with a line of Cisco-branded, Linux-powered, 'unmanaged' switches designed for SMB customers who don't want to mess around with configuration.
Cisco is an enterprise and service-provider networking giant with switching gear that powers the largest networks in the world. This week, however, Cisco is going after the other end of the spectrum with its new entry-level Cisco 100 series for smaller businesses.
The Cisco 100 series replaces an earlier generation of Linksys-branded devices and includes new power management features and capabilities. Cisco this week also unveiled new entry-level wireless firewall devices for businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
The new SMB-focused networking products mark an expansion of a multiyear effort from Cisco to more effectively target the needs of small business, it said.
"We're announcing a new set of switches at the low end of our portfolio with the Cisco 100," Mark Monday, Cisco's vice president and general manager of small business solutions, told InternetNews.com. "These are very focused at simplicity and are what we call 'unmanaged switches,' with everything from eight to 48 ports. It's really focused on the customer that doesn't want to bother with trying to do any configuration."
Read "Cisco Switches Up Entry-Level SMB Networking" at Small Business Computing
