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Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M
- shmerl 9y agoHm. I wonder what will happen to Linksys supporting open source WiFi drivers now for their WRT/ACS routers.
- wtallis 9y agoDid they ever make meaningful contributions? I recall when they first revived the WRT branding, they promised open-source support for the Marvell chipsets they were now using, but it took an extremely long time for any code to show up, and it was far from being in a state to upstream. I haven't paid close attention since then, but I don't recall running across any mention that Linksys was directly helping improve the open-source Marvell drivers.
- shmerl 9y agoIt's not upstreamed, but it's regularly updated: https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi I think @yuhhaurlin works for Linksys, but I'm not sure.
- kbutler 9y agoJust today I contacted Belkin live support for a usb-c gigabit Ethernet adapter that stopped working 1 month in. They are shipping me a replacement. My previous experience was with a router that would occasionally fail under load (e.g., torrents), requiring a restart. They sent a replacement for that, too, but I never found a use for an unreliable router.
- bhouston 9y agoNeat. Belkin was pretty crap about 7 years or so ago but they raised their game I find in the last couple years. They are pretty solid with decent prices now. I think there is a pretty good market for smart home accessories, various wifi enabled devices like powerstrips, lights, cameras, locks, alarm systems, etc. With Belkin's Walmart distribution network and their low costs, I think it may be something they could target well.
- canthonytucci 9y agolast belkin items I had were: * an outlet multipler/usb charging thing - died * lighting cables of various lengths - all died maybe I have bad luck, but it seems to me like they are still making garbage.
- walrus01 9y agoIf you want good quality third party chargers and USB cables - buy Anker
- praneshp 9y agoCan second this. They're well reviewed, do well and last long.
- Tepix 9y agoIf Anker is so great, why don't they have TÜV/CCC/UL certified power supplies?
- alfanick 9y agoProcess of certification is heavy on cash, need some weird certifications? Price of products will increase and customers will be hurt as a result (just to make some minor portion of customers happy).
- Tepix 9y agoI don't buy it. As long as their products aren't certified, I won't buy them. Besides when you look at the reviews on Amazon, some of their chargers allegedly catch fire or start to smell like burning plastic...
- alfanick 9y agoTheir products are obviously CE certified and some of them are PSE certified. Good enough for me. Edit: Needless to say, certifications are bullshit anyway, it's just a waiver for lawyers - Samsung Galaxy Note 7 had all possible certification, yet it was as more dangerous than any Anker product.
- luhn 9y ago> You probably know Belkin for its various lines of accessories, peripherals, and assorted consumer electronics; Linksys, surely the most recognizable router brand, is a subsidiary. Apparently Cisco sold Linksys to Belkin in 2013. That's news to me.
- duxup 9y agoCisco had money burning a hole in their pocket and bought a some consumer stuff and then had no idea what to do with it ... so they sold most of it off, or simply discontinued it (like flip video).
- gonzo 9y agoNot the first time they entered and then abandoned the consumer space. Once upon a time, they made NICs.
- duxup 9y agoYup, they took their corporate video conferencing products and tried to make a consumer version (Umi I think it was) that while cheaper than the cooperate product were still absurdly expensive. This was all while Skype pretty well established .... it was pure insanity.
- VectorLock 9y agoAnd now we have WebEx and they're trying to make a Slack competitor.
- nimbix 9y agoHad to use WebEx on a client call once. Had to install two different packages because audio was "provided by Comcast". It was the only time ever that I saw the video, but couldn't get audio, so a coworker had to update me on Slack in real time so I knew what I was watching. Horrible.
- 9y ago
- siruncledrew 9y agoDamn, I didn't know Foxconn was the 4th larges IT company with 726k employees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_information_technology_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_informatio...
- r00fus 9y ago726k is 4th ?
- yash1th 9y agoranked by revenue. By employee count, it is the largest
- mygo 9y agothat’s how you know it’s heavily inflated by manual labor / factory staff
- Abishek_Muthian 9y ago>"The list is limited to companies with annual revenues exceeding US$50 billion."
- jonknee 9y agoAlmost all are factory employees assembling iPhones and the like. Not sure if I would consider that IT employment like a lot of the others on that list (Amazon's is also inflated quite a bit with warehouse and retail/grocery staff).
- ktta 9y agoApple too. Retail AFAIK is the largest division.
- quickthrower2 9y agoSame order of magnitudes as all of the UK NHS. Wow!
- spiderPig 9y agoIt is a little disconcerting that Foxconn (subject to deep Chinese government overreach) will now own Linksys
- zitterbewegung 9y agoI stopped buying linksys products a long time ago. Moved on to Netgear and Asus. But, doesn't Foxconn already manufacture a bunch of American products?
- Nokinside 9y ago46% of Foxconn revenue comes from Apple (they manufacture iPhones) also Kindles, Xbox, PlayStation 4, Wii U, BlackBerries, lots of of Google's hardware, many Cisco's routers etc.
- ausjke 9y agopretty much all of them except for some high end gears such as cisco routers...
- spiderPig 9y agoSure, but they own the firmware now though
- bhouston 9y agoFoxconn is Taiwanese like Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, MSI, MediaTek, D-Link, and HTC. Both Asus and D-Link are major router makers as well. Also fun fact, nearly all routers use the same chips from Boardcom. The majority of differences between routers is just firmware and packaging, the guts are all the same.
- ausjke 9y agofoxconn makes routers for all the vendors I think, e.g. dlink.netgear,belkin...now Belkin might push its competitors away from Foxconn's assembly lines
- walrus01 9y agoThe only good Belkin product I have ever seen is their 12 outlet power strip. As a network engineer everything they make with an Ethernet/wifi interface is complete shit. But this is not really news, D-Link, Netgear, many of their competitors are also junk.
- duxup 9y agoEvery Belkin product I owned was garbage... but just like you I ran across a couple power strips that are surprisingly good. I don't know if they bought someone who knew what they were doing with power strips or what, but .... i'm still using them.
- walrus01 9y agoI have a lot of these: https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-12-Outlet-Protector-Protection-BE112234-10/dp/B000HPX46U https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-12-Outlet-Protector-Protection... My theory is that they are good because electrical safety is something that is actually regulated. UL and CE certification to sell as a consumer device. Whereas there is no penalty or regulation for shitty routers with shit firmware.
- duxup 9y agoYup that is it, the other models are pretty capable too. I like your theory, that makes sense. Guys behind the power strips can pull the old "Nope can't cheap out here, there are standards!" While the guys working on the POS USB hub or dongle or whatever can't say the same.
- chx 9y ago> UL and CE certification to sell as a consumer device. Reminder: > CE marking does not provide any specific information to the consumer. It is not a quality assurance declaration, it does not show evidence of third-party testing, and it should not be confused with any independent certification mark of the type issued by international or European notified test bodies.
- ajinkyax 9y agoJust confirmed with my relative who works ta Belkin, Dubai. They just finished call with them.. and news is already leaked.
- jrcii 9y agoI associate Belkin with $30 cables from Staples/Best Buy that I can buy for $3 from Amazon.
- a-fried-egg 9y agoGood thing for Netgear
- bsimpson 9y agoDuplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16684316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16684316
- JohnnyConatus 9y agoAccording to sources, Foxconn really didn't want to buy Belkin but that's all they had at the store.
- erikb 9y ago> best known for manufacturing practically everything in the world Huh? I thought they manufacture iPhone chips and that's it. Now they buy peripherals because iphone itself won't make enough profit growth anymore to give top management the multi-million-dollar bonuses they are used to.
- peebtkxs 9y agoWas it Foxconn that was blocked from acquiring an American company earlier this month? Is this acquisition a order of magnitude smaller? Is it strange that this wasn’t blocked as well?
- kobayashi 9y agoI think you're referring to Broadcom trying to acquire Qualcomm. Very different situation. This is a good breakdown of why that was blocked: https://stratechery.com/2018/qualcomm-national-security-and-patents/ https://stratechery.com/2018/qualcomm-national-security-and-...
- reiichiroh 9y agoDoes Belkin own Kensington and former joystick brand Gravis too?
- saipardhu 9y ago> "I asked both companies for more details, and got a polite no comment in record time". Found this line really funny, I guess I'm sailing a lonely ship on this.
- thrownaway954 9y agoi honestly would think that Belkin would be worth something in the billions. they are the qtip of computer cables.