Products and branding to remain separate; support to continue for Linksys products
If you own a Linksys Wi-Fi router and were worried about receiving support for it or other gear after the company was sold to Belkin in January, you can breathe easier, at least for the foreseeable future.
Belkin today said Linksys’ technologies “will be managed and maintained as a separate brand and product portfolio,” and that customer support for existing Linksys products would continue through the same websites as before (basically, continue to go to linksys.com for support). All valid warranties for products would also be honored for current and future Linksys products, the company added.
Belkin made the announcement as part of its completion of the Linksys acquisition, the home networking division formerly owned by Cisco. The deal was announced in January, which Cisco Systems sold off the Linksys division to Belkin for an undisclosed sum. A Belkin spokeswoman today said that “specific financial details of this transaction will not be disclosed,” as Belkin is a privately held company.
Products that were already in the development pipeline by Linksys, including products announced earlier this year at 2013 International CES, would continue to come to market, Belkin said. Additional products would be announced later this spring, the company added.
The best part of this news from my standpoint is that Linksys will go back to being called just “Linksys”, instead of “Linksys by Cisco,” “Linksys Cisco”, “Cisco Linksys” or other confusing names that had marketing people going in circles whenever I wrote about the company/division. Belkin said that it will just call the division “Linksys”. Huzzah for small miracles, at least.
