Bloomberg reports Cisco plans to drop its home networking business-- "people with knowledge of the situation" say the company has Barclays looking for a willing Linksys buyer.
The Linksys brand covers routers, gateways, range extenders and Powerline adapters.
Cisco bought the company back in 2003 for $500 million-- but will probably "fetch much less" than that now due to its being a "mature consumer business with low margins."
Potential buyers include TV makers looking for a recognisable brand and technology Bloomberg sources say.
Neither Cisco or Barclays have comment on the news story as yet, but such a sale might not come as much of a surprise-- after all the current Cisco strategy is to completely exit consumer business in favour of enterprise software and technology business. You might remember the 2011 killing of the Flip division (without even consideration of sale), just 2 years after the $590m purchase of the then-popular low-cost camera maker.
Other Cisco consumer business includes the Scientific Atlanta STB unit and paid-TV software maker NDS Group. Will the networking giant sell off those as well?
Go Cisco Said to Hire Barclays to Sell Linksys Division (Bloomberg)
