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Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

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Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#101

Post by duxup »

mygo wrote: post #45
duxup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cisco 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).

they discontinued flip video because after the acquisition they didn’t really understand the consumer and then GoPro came and they got wreckt

Generally speaking Cisco has largely blown the whole consumer business... repeatedly.

They just don't understand it, they're not built to run it.

They spent a ton on flip during the rise of the smartphone. Every executive probabbly had a device in their pocket that would replace the company they were buying for crazy money.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#102

Post by nimbix »

VectorLock wrote: post #59
duxup wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, 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.

And now we have WebEx and they're trying to make a Slack competitor.

Had 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.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#103

Post by digi_owl »

ww520 wrote: post #55
duxup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cisco 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).

That's Cisco's R&D model. Buy smaller companies with interesting tech and see if their products stick. If they do, great. If not, spit them out via sale or shut them down.

Hardly unique to Cisco. Every major tech company, yes even Apple, operate they try to sustain their existence beyond their initial success.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#104

Post by paulie_a »

VectorLock wrote: post #59
duxup wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, 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.

And now we have WebEx and they're trying to make a Slack competitor.

WebEx is such an abomination of software I will never use it again.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#105

Post by triangleman »

paulie_a wrote: post #104
VectorLock wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now we have WebEx and they're trying to make a Slack competitor.

WebEx is such an abomination of software I will never use it again.

guess what, if you use the WebEx chat program it saves your entire history in an encrypted sqlite db that you can't access after your company stops using WebEx.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#106

Post by bronco21016 »

ieo2929 wrote: post #20
cctt23 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst router I’ve ever seen was a D-Link. I was in a position where I had to provide support for it, and in the end I gave up and bought them an ASUS with my own money. It ended up being worth it, just in terms of time and aggravation saved. The software and firmware on the D-Link were garbage, and so was the actual build.

Ubiquiti ftw After a brief romance with VyOS and RPi based APs, Ubiquiti came along and swept me off my feet Currently using their gear throughout a 300-ish person office. Easy to setup, no issues that weren’t our fault in the first place. Great kit for startup and growing type situations

What was your experience with Raspberry Pi APs? I set one up for Americans traveling abroad on the original Pi B model and couldn’t get any reliability for the life of me. The VPN constantly broke down because of WiFi sleep issues.

Wondering if things are better with newer hardware.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#107

Post by jontro »

walrus01 wrote: post #16

The 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.

Their USB-C docks for macbook pro works great. A lot better than other usb-c alternatives.

We also used the previous version for older macbooks with thunderbolt and never had a problem with them.

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#108

Post by prolepunk »

pc86 wrote: post #90
walrus01 wrote: post #16

The 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.

What do you recommend for a simple home network with a few computers and mobile devices?

Everything that runs OpenWRT is usually a good choice. TP-Link?

Re: Foxconn buys Belkin for $866M

#109

Post by prolepunk »

chrissnell wrote: post #52
chx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source to the rescue. https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864_ac-wifi

Problem with OpenWRT is that most people run it on garbage consumer-grade hardware.

There's a bunch of 'reference' devices that runs OpenWRT well. The list is pretty long

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864

I personally had good experiences with TP-Link Archer C7 and GL Networks mini-routers.

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