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BY JENNIFER HAGENDORF FOLLETT
Known for its laserlike focus on small businesses, Linksys earned the No. 1 spot for WLAN products priced less than $500 with a 38.1 percent market share. Parent company Cisco Systems placed second with 20.1 percent. Netgear followed with 17.3 percent, trailed by D-Link Systems with 7.7 percent and U.S. Robotics with 2.1 percent. The NPD/Distributor Track service monitors U.S. dollar volume generated through certain distributors, including members of the Global Technology Distribution Council.
Timothy Bohen, vice president at CMSInter.Net, Crystal, Mich., said Linksys packs a double punch with lower channel pricing and better reliability. Linksys-based solutions cost less to support because the company's WLAN equipment rarely breaks, he said. "We hardly ever have to go back after we install it," Bohen said.
Last year was also a growth year for Linksys, which boosted its share by 1.2 percent vs. 2005. But that was not enough to match the top growth best-sellers. Netgear and D-Link both hold that title, with each growing share by 1.6 percentage points. U.S. Robotics gained 0.7 percentage points, while Cisco was the only one of the top five players to lose share, dropping 1.5 percentage points.
Frederick Johnson, president and CIO of Ross-Tek, Cleveland, said Netgear is likely gaining channel converts because of its stellar support. "From day one, Netgear has had phenomenal support for the technology consultants that service small-business accounts," he said.
D-Link, meanwhile, is winning sales based on the strength of its technology, said Jeffrey Goldberg, president of Washington Computer Services, New York. "They have a cornucopia of products, and some of them are quite good and quite innovative," he said.
The main challenge for D-Link and Netgear is perception. Some businesses associate them with their consumer product portfolios and are reluctant to deploy their technology, solution providers said. It's a problem Linksys has solved through its association with Cisco.
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SMB Wireless Networking
Top 5 Best-Sellers* DEVICES PRICED < $500
* RANKING BASED ON 2006 REVENUE SHARE; HIGHLIGHTED VENDOR GAINED GREATEST SHARE FROM 2005 TO 2006 SOURCE: THE NPD GROUP/DISTRIBUTOR TRACK (INCLUDES GTDC DATA) |
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