Cisco buys Linksys
 

(<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/21/BU275654.DTL">news story</a>)

I've heard good things about Linksys; they seem to have set the status quo (or some more fitting phrase) for home networking. Cisco, from what I can tell, isn't too bad. Their curriculum may be awful, but the hardware (from my exceedingly limited experience) seems decent.

So...

Is this friendly takeover a good thing? I'm failing to see how it won't be, unless Cisco goes brand-name price happy on all the relatively simple stuff Linksys makes.

Linksys sells cheap crap at appropriate prices. Same as SMC, D-Link, and a number of others. I hope Cisco either keeps them very separate or improves the quality.

Linksys may be crap...
 

However,

Lots of people buy their stuff. And they have great support in other OSes than Windows (like Linux).

I have 2 Linksys PCMCIA cards for my laptops, and they run just fine under Linux, Windows 2000, and XP.

Hopefully, it'll mean their Access Points and other wireless gear goes up in quality!