News | March 5, 2007

Linksys Announces New Fully Managed Stackable And Standalone Switches Built For Small Businesses

Linksys®, a Division of Cisco Systems, Inc., and the recognized leading global manufacturer of voice, wireless, and networking hardware for home, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) and the small business environments, today announced six new fully managed Layer-2 switches designed specifically for the small business market. These new switches, part of the Linksys Business Series line-up, include:

  • Stackable
    • 24-Port 10/100 + 4-Port Gigabit + 2 SFP Managed Switch (SFE2000)
    • 24-Port 10/100 + 4-Port Gigabit + 2 SFP + PoE Managed Switch (SFE2000P)
    • 24-Port Gigabit + 4 SFP Managed Switch (SGE2000)
    • 24-Port Gigabit +4 SFP PoE Managed Switch (SGE2000P)
  • Standalone
    • 24-Port 10/100 + 4-Port Gigabit Switch with WebView and PoE (SRW224G4P)
    • 48-Port 10/100 + 4-Port Gigabit Switch with WebView and PoE (SRW248G4P)

According to the latest 5-year Ethernet Switch forecast report released by leading market research firm, Dell'Oro Group, the small business segment has been much slower to upgrade their networks to Gigabit because of the high price premium associated with these products. Furthermore, given that many small businesses do not have an IT staff, they have shied away from fully managed switches due to the complexities associated with a lot of the managed offerings currently on the market. The Linksys small business switches address these issues by providing switches that start at $15 a port and dual Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet ports for addressing today's customer while also enabling the technology for tomorrow's network. The additional software features Linksys added helps small businesses set up and manage their own networks while the PoE and QoS features provide the ability to add Voice and video service that can help them further save money on infrastructure and service costs.

"The new line-up of fully managed switches target small businesses that have no IT staff and rely on solutions that are designed to be simple to use, install and configure," said David Tucker, senior director of product marketing, Linksys Connected Office Business Organization. "These switches provide needed business features not found in consumer-grade products like remote management, system availability, backup power redundancy and stacking.

Fully Managed Stackable Switches
Linksys fully managed switches are optimized to help maximize the system availability with fully redundant stacking, redundant power option and dual imaging for resilient firmware upgrades. Linksys managed switches provide an intuitive, simple to use management interface enabling administrators and VARs to better utilize the advanced features to help enable a highly secure and optimized network.

The SFE2000, SFE2000P, SGE2000, SGE2000P include a number of features ideal for the small business:

  • Stacking - up to 8 high for a total of 192 ports
  • Hot insertion and removal of switches
  • Power-Over-Ethernet (PoE) in SFE2000P and SGE2000P models
  • Layer 2 functionality and Static Layer 3 functionality provides wirespeed connection between discrete workgroups
  • Management – Web GUI, SNMP, RMON, Telnet and Console
  • Advanced QoS classification and remarking help provide optimal experience for voice and video applications
  • Advanced Security – ACLs, 802.1X, SSH/SSL, and DOS Attack prevention,
  • Rich Availability Features – Spanning Tree, RSTP, MSTP, Link aggregation, Strom Control (Broadcast, Multicast, and unknown Unicast)
  • 256 VLANS supported
  • Linksys developed Network Map, Discovered Devices and window-in-window software for ease of use and control
  • Gigabit Ethernet Fiber Small Form factor Pluggable (SFP) ports for supporting long range, high bandwidth applications
  • Much More!

Fully Managed Standalone Switches
These new Linksys rackmount switches include WebView which is an administration tool for accessing, controlling and monitoring traffic on networks remotely through a web browser. Up to 48 10/100/1000 ports can wire the office workstations, while fiber expansion options through the mini-GBIC ports allow administrators to add mini GBIC SFP Transceivers for longer range, high throughput connections to the main network.

  • WebView remote monitoring and configuration via a web browser
  • Two mini GBIC expansion ports for fiber expansion
  • Auto MDI/MDI-X ports for sensing cable type
  • 256 VLAN support, 8 port trunking groups, console port and 802.1p Class of Service (CoS) support
  • Link aggregation and Port Mirroring
  • 802.1x authentication and radius support
  • MAC address learning
  • Containment of Storms – Broadcast, Multicast and Unknown Unicast, helps to minimize and contain the effect of this type of traffic on regular traffic within the network.
  • SNMP and RMON Management for expanding network visibility options.
  • Telnet support
  • Much More!

Pricing and availability
The new Linksys Small Business Series Switches are immediate availably through major distributors; value added resellers, and direct response. Estimated Street Prices are as follows:

  • Stackable
    • SFE2000: $409.99
    • SFE2000P: $659.99
    • SGE2000: $749.99
    • SGE2000P: $999.99
  • Standalone
    • SRW224G4P: $469.99
    • SRW248G4P: $879.99

About Linksys
Founded in 1988, Linksys, a Division of Cisco Systems Inc., (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the recognized global leader in voice, Wireless and Ethernet networking for consumer, SOHO and small business users. Linksys is dedicated to making networking easy and affordable for its customers, offering innovative, award-winning products that seamlessly integrate with a variety of devices and applications. Linksys provides award-winning product support to its customers. For more information, visit www.linksys.com or www.linksys.com/var.