Cisco's Linksys Cuts Global Channel Chief

Linksys' global channel sales and operations continue to report up to Keller, but responsibilities previously held by Williams, such as U.S. and Canada channel sales and channel marketing, have all been dispersed.

That means responsibility for all North American channel sales falls under Robert Gregerson, who now has the expanded role of vice president of U.S. and Canada sales. Gregerson joined Linksys last year to run U.S. and Canada retail sales.

"We know where we have optimized partners, and we know that the contributions from those partners that sell both Cisco and Linksys products are growing even stronger than those that are Linksys-only, so we're going to continue to collaborate with the Cisco force to make sure that we grow those partners, continue to solicit other new partners into the fold and continue on the same path basically that was started by Nigel and the team," Gregerson said.

Gregerson came to Linksys from Polaroid, where he worked alongside Michael Pocock, who left Polaroid and joined Linksys as senior vice president and general manager in 2006. Gregerson took over Pocock's role as president of Polaroid after his departure. Previously he served as president of direct market reseller PC Connection. Prior to that, he ran North American channel sales and marketing for Compaq.

"I've got about 26 years of channel history. It is in my blood," Gregerson said.