Well, I'm sure a multi-billion pound company knows more about business than anyone here, so they must have a valid business case for doing so. :)
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Well, I'm sure a multi-billion pound company knows more about business than anyone here, so they must have a valid business case for doing so. :)
Nah I know better then a 180 billion dollar company. :-p
Me too :D
The marketing theory is really quite simple. It costs money to maintain separate brand names so you only do it for a sound commercial reason.
For example, where you are dealing with a totally different product:
Seiko make clocks and watches...............Epson make printers.............. they are actually the same company.
Again we have the situation where you are selling into a different price, quality and performance market like Dell and Alienware, Asus and Asrock, or Toyota and Lexus.
Cisco obviously consider Linksys to be a continuation of the same business not a real competitor or an "artificial competitor".
Artificial competition is common in canned foods, detergents and the like. There are many brands but very few manufacturers. General Motors would be another example, as it makes a number of competing brands.
The success or otherwise of the merger will depend on how skillfully it is marketed and how well market perception is manipulated. ;)
Hey it's been a long time ... how is it going?
Well, Cisco is moving to a new market now, they are moving into the SMB market. As all of you may know, Cisco is high end solution provider for Med-Market and big businesses. Having LinkSys products marked as Cisco would definitely help it to move easier into this market.
Cisco has launched its first SMB solution The Smart Business Communication System (SBCS). Adding LinkSys portfolio would easily make it more recognizable in the SMB segment, as a result targeting the market through commercials and Cisco partners would be easier. I think this is the right think to do, LinkSys in the end of the day a Cisco subsidiary. This is just my 2 cents.
And As Nokia said they know more than us, especially when talking marketing and sales.
Cheers
/Slightly at a tangent/
It will be interesting to see how they handle existing stocks?
At some point they will want to get the old Linksys product off the shelves and so I would expect these items to be "on sale" even if there is no technical difference.
It would not be reasonable to expect retailers to take the hit for the reduced margin so they will have to come up with an attractive compensation scheme?
Unless they go for a recall and rebadge approach.
When Cisco phases equipment out they normally bring the newer item in at a much scaled down price than it's counter-part.
Take the PIX & ASA firewalls for example - they are marketing the ASA as the 'next generation PIX' instead of the 'replacement for the PIX' - due to the amount of PIX's in circulation this makes good sense - however obviously they want people to start using ASA's and not PIX's, so they have brought ASA's in at around 25% - 35% below the market rates and for the last year or so the price of a PIX has gone up slightly. (If anyone is about to buy a firewall now is the time to get an ASA)
Obviously when making a procurement decision anyone in their right mind will opt for an ASA over a PIX (Newer, better and cheaper....)
I should imagine they will bring the Cisco home routers on to the market at a lower retail price than the Linksys equivalents - this way resellers can still sell the Linksys stuff for the normal price, and when their stock has gone the demand will be for the Cisco stuff instead....hence eventually Linksys will be gone forever...of course after a while the price of the new equipment shoots up :)