Linksys

History

In 1988, spouses Janie and Victor Tsao founded DEW International, later renamed Linksys, in the garage of their Irvine, California home. The Tsaos were immigrants from Taiwan who held second jobs as consultants specializing in pairing American technology vendors with manufacturers in Taiwan. The founders used Taiwanese manufacturing to achieve its early success. The company's first products were printer sharers that connected multiple PCs to printers. The company expanded into Ethernet hubs, network cards, and cords. In 1992, the Tsaos began running Linksys full time and moved the company and its growing staff to a formal office. By 1994, it had grown to 55 employees with annual revenues of $6.5 million.

Linksys received a major boost in 1995, when Microsoft released Windows 95 with built-in networking functions that expanded the market for its products. Linksys established its first U.S. retail channels with Fry's Electronics (1995) and Best Buy (1996). In the late 1990s, Linksys released the first affordable multiport router, popularizing Linksys as a home networking brand. By 2003, when the company was acquired by Cisco, it had 305 employees and revenues of more than $500 million.

Cisco expanded the company's product line, acquiring VoIP maker Sipura Technology in 2005 and selling its products under Linksys Voice System or later Linksys Business Series brands. In July 2008, Cisco acquired Seattle-based Pure Networks, a vendor of home networking-management software.

Cisco announced in January 2013 that it would sell its home networking division and Linksys to Belkin, giving Belkin 30% of the home router market.

In 2018, Belkin and its subsidiaries, including Linksys, were acquired by Foxconn, a Taiwanese multinational electronics firm and the largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, for $866 million.