D-Link Systems Inc. wants to sell more to businesses that have tighter purse strings these days.
The Fountain Valley-based maker of networking gear, part of Taiwan’s D-Link Corp., is pitching its routers and other products as a cheaper way for budget-conscious businesses to expand their networks.
The company’s selling point: We’re cheaper than Cisco.
D-Link’s less expensive prices could appeal to small and midsize companies that have seen their businesses slow this year, crimping their ability to spend on technology.
They also appeal to resellers,tech shops that sell and install computer gear at businesses,which keep more of the profits on D-Link sales.
Targeting businesses is a bit of a switch for D-Link, which is better known for selling to consumers and home-based businesses.
“We have two different models we are running now, two different faces,” Chief Executive Steven Joe said. “D-Link is well known in the consumer sector, which we started here in Fountain Valley a dozen years ago. But we’ve actually been involved in the business sector for 22 years.”
D-Link’s Taiwanese parent got its start selling to businesses through resellers, according to Joe.
The Business Journal estimates D-Link’s local operation, which has some 300 workers, sees about $1 billion in sales a year.
The bulk of D-Link’s U.S. revenue comes from switches, routers, modems and network adapter cards sold at electronics stores and by online retailers.
Products aimed more squarely at businesses,network switches, extra data storage and security cameras,are a small, growing part of D-Link’s sales, Joe said.
The company’s main competitor for consumers is Irvine-based Cisco-Linksys LLC, an independently run division of Cisco Systems Inc. that sells through electronics retailers.
For sales to smaller businesses, D-Link also competes with Linksys but more so with Cisco itself, as well as with Marlborough, Mass.-based 3Com Corp.
“As for the technology, we’ve been working on it to meet business requirements and making it equivalent to a Cisco or 3Com,” Joe said.
Key Hire
The company has been adding to its division that sells to businesses.
D-Link this week said it hired Nick Tidd from 3Com to expand its business division in Canada and head up its distribution strategy for North America.
Tidd, former director of 3Com’s Canadian unit, is set to play a role in developing sales as vice president of North American channel development.
“Tidd is the latest example of the commitment we have made to further strengthen our business sales,” Joe said. “We are adding more people to really try to increase the growth rate.”
Before D-Link, Tidd had been with 3Com for more than a decade in various positions.
D-Link sells devices to businesses in a handful of categories:
n Switches,devices that direct the flow of data and make up the backbone of corporate networks. D-Link is second to Cisco in the number of switches shipped in the past year, according to Scottsdale-based market researcher In-Stat.
n External storage,drives that expand the storage capacity of data storage networks. For the three months through April, D-Link’s sales of storage devices more than tripled, driven by lower costs for memory devices and the need for more space.
n Voice over Internet,devices that allow for phone service using less expensive Internet lines.
n Networked security cameras,feeds from the cameras can be monitored over the Internet, on cell phones and portable computers, like those in police cars. D-Link ranks among the top five makers of Internet cameras, according to Port Washington, N.Y.-based technology market tracker NPD Group Inc.
Among D-Link’s customers are city governments, school districts and shopping malls.
Big sales are coming from security-obsessed Britain, where officials are buying cameras for added surveillance in airports and subway stations.
Industry watchers expect Internet cameras to eventually replace closed-circuit systems, which use TVs to monitor action.
For Internet cameras, “the cost is the same or less,” Joe said.
“The quality of the picture and technology is so much better. You can access the cameras from any computer in the world,” he said.
