VON: Linksys expands small business focus

SAN JOSE--Although best known for its home router market dominance, Linksys started its life focusing on small business and is staying true to its roots.

The Cisco Systems subsidiary this week launched four new products aimed at businesses with less than 100 employees, and more specifically those with about 20 seats.

The goal, said Sherman Scholten, director of product management in voice engineering for Linksys, is to offer a full range of products that service providers or value-added resellers can use to deliver converged voice and data services to small to mid-sized companies.

The new products include the SPA8000, an eight-port SIP-based ATA device, the SPA962 multi-line IP phone, a “sidecar” to the SPA962 that offers attendant functions and an ADSL gateway that offers two phone ports on an integrated access device.

Smaller businesses are getting more savvy about VoIP, Scholten said, and savvy service providers such as Cbeyond are finding they can offer “over the top” services that piggyback onto an existing network connection and deliver cost-effective service without requiring an IT staff.

Fully forty percent of Linksys’ revenues come from small business sales, Scholten said, and the company is working with parent Cisco to ensure the right solutions get into the hands of both service providers and their SMB customers.

The company’s Linksys One service remains a popular option, featuring “a converged voice and data service from the core that is tightly integrated with the CPE on site.”