Who says the router can't be sexy?

Technology vendors have often been on the cutting-edge of technology innovation, but the same can't always be said of their design. Manufacturers have more often been concerned about what's inside the box, devoting less time and resources to the look and feel of the box itself.

Some years ago, Linksys by Cisco found itself in that situation. Long a solid engineering company and a market leader in the wireless router space, its designs were functional at best and its competitors were launching a play for their market share with bold and innovative new designs.

To help change the company culture and to make design a priority, the company hired Chris Landy, a former design executive with companies such as Polaroid, Hewlett Packard and Digital Equipment Corp. Now senior executive director, worldwide design & experience within the Cisco consumer business group based in Irvine, Calif., Landy recently had a conversation with Computer Dealer News about the design revolution, and evolution, at Linksys.

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Technology vendors have often been on the cutting-edge of technology innovation, but the same can't always be said of their design. Manufacturers have more often been concerned about what's inside the box, devoting less time and resources to the look and feel of the box itself.

Some years ago, Linksys by Cisco found itself in that situation. Long a solid engineering company and a market leader in the wireless router space, its designs were functional at best and its competitors were launching a play for their market share with bold and innovative new designs.

To help change the company culture and to make design a priority, the company hired Chris Landy, a former design executive with companies such as Polaroid, Hewlett Packard and Digital Equipment Corp. Now senior executive director, worldwide design & experience within the Cisco consumer business group based in Irvine, Calif., Landy recently had a conversation with Computer Dealer News about the design revolution, and evolution, at Linksys.

CDN: Was a conscious decision made by Linksys to get serious about design?

Chris Landry: The decision to change was indeed very conscious. There were a lot of changes going on around us with respect to our competition. Companies such as Belkin, Netgear and D-Link were all investing in design. We weren't investing in design. We had 48 per cent and were the market leaders, but we were successful despite design. They brought in a new leader and CEO, and the goal was to bring design into the company because it wasn't a core competency. My role was pretty singular: take control, shake things up, and being to drive design as a core competency within a company that was fairly engineering-centric.

It was painful at first. We had to take all our products worldwide and do a visual audit. Every product, device, piece of collateral and packaging was staged in a large room and we did tours for employees, the board and senior executives. I wanted people to see the magnitude of just how bad things were.

We couldn't do it all at once so we went selectively after the core router business, aiming to raise the design bar within the core router business and add a level of simplicity to the design. Our traditional products looked almost jeep-like, they were very utilitarian with lots of antennas. We focus-grouped the old design and we got hammered.

CDN: You were still the market leader, though, so was the design really a major factor?

Landry: If we were the market leader with a design that's dated and visually challenged, where could we take the brand if we improved the design? There was a lot of movement around us from a competitive landscape where, if we didn't bring design in as a core compentecy we'd be behind the curve, and it'd be too late.

We built an internal design organization, with staff in the U.S. and Denmark. The new (router) design was a major change. For us to eliminate the external antennas was a very painful exercise from an engineering perspective because they'd always done it that way. There was major concern if we could still get the signal integrity, and we co-developed a verion with and without it so we could make sure before it went into production.