Linksys cracks Harvey Norman

Cisco-owned Linksys has signed an agreement to stock its wired and wireless products at more than 150 Harvey Norman stores across Australia.

Under this agreement, Harveys would sell the consumer and SMB networking provider's wireless-G networking routers, adapters and modems.

Graeme Reardon, Linksys regional director for Australia and New Zealand, said the agreement marked another major milestone for Linksys’ expansion into the retail channel.

“Having a presence at Harvey Norman will allow Linksys to reach a wider customer base. 2006 will be a landmark year for wireless and wired networking equipment as broadband adoption in Australia continues to grow,” he said.

The agreement with Harvey Norman follows Linksys' first foray into mass market retail last year when it signed a retail agreement with Dick Smith Powerhouse.

The range of Linksys products available from Harvey Norman stores included; the Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router with SRX (WRT54GX) and Linksys Wireless-G ADSL Gateway (WAG54G).

Linksys will face stiff competition from the likes of D-Link and Netgear in the retail channel. Consumer and SMB products manufactured by these vendors have sold through Harvey Norman for quite a while.

Sue Ponder director of distribution and retail sales at Netgear said the vendor was "dissapointed" about this agreement with Linksys. "However the challenge for Harvey Norman is to sell everyone's products," she said.

Netgear won a contract late last year with Woolworths to sell its products through Big W stores. Harvey Norman responded by removing Netgear products from its shelves.

The issue had since been rectified and the company is selling kit through Harvey Norman, said Ponder.

Netgear intended to wait and see the outcome of this deal because of its long history with Harvey Norman. "We are going to keep going forward. We resolved the 'big W' issue because we have been partners for such a long time," she said.

"The competiton in this area has always been hot, but we are now seeing more consumers introducing wireless into homes and now there's more of a focus on consumers buying these products."