| Type | Public (NASDAQ: NTGR) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Communications equipment |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | San Jose, California |
| Key people | Patrick Lo, CEO & Chairman |
| Products | Hubs, Routers, DSL/Cable Gateways, Switches, Wireless Access Points, and Storage |
| Revenue | US$743 million (2008) |
| Employees | 565 (Q2 2009) |
| Website | http://www.netgear.com |
Netgear (stylized, trademarked, and marketed as NETGEAR) is a U.S. manufacturer of computer networking equipment and other computer hardware.
The company was incorporated January 8, 1996 as a subsidiary of Bay Networks, to "focus on providing networking solutions for small businesses and homes."[1] In August 1998, the company was purchased by Nortel as part of its acquisition of Bay Networks. Netgear remained a wholly owned subsidiary of Nortel until March 2000, when it began transitioning to third-party ownership. It became fully independent from Nortel as of February 2002.[2][3]
Netgear sells primarily through a sales channel network, which includes traditional retailers, online retailers, direct market resellers, value added resellers, and broadband service providers in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. Its main retail competitors are Linksys and D-Link. In 2007, the United States (38% of revenue) and the United Kingdom (52%) were the company's two largest markets; however, EMEA and Asia Pacific were the fastest growing, with growth rates of 28% and 34%, respectively.[4]
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Netgear's range of products are primarily focused in the networking market, with networking products for home and business use, including wired and wireless technology.
Netgear markets a range of network products for the business sector, most notably their ProSafe switch range. As of May 2007[update], Netgear provides limited lifetime warranties across their entire range of ProSafe products for as long as the original buyer owns the product.[5]
Netgear also markets various network appliances for the business sector, such as managed switches and wired and wireless VPN firewalls. The firewalls compete in the SoHo and SMB market with Linksys, as well as with software distributions such as pfSense, m0n0wall, SmoothWall, and Untangle. The managed switches compete with HP ProCurve Networking and 3Com.
2009 Netgear launched the ProSecure product range with all-in-one gateway solutions for small businesses and branch-offices(UTM series) and stream-scanning-appliances for 100-600 concurrent users. They use the Stream-Scanning technologies by CP-Secure. In combination with the managed layer 3 switches and professional NAS devices in 19", Netgear addresses value added resellers new security resellers.
Netgear sells a line of premium NAS devices to small businesses and consumers under the product name ReadyNAS. With this storage hardware line, Netgear vies with competitors like Buffalo and HP to deliver NAS solutions to target market segments. Netgear entered the storage market in May 2007 when it acquired Infrant (originator of the ReadyNAS line).[6][7] In March 2009, Netgear began to offer an integrated online backup solution called the ReadyNAS Vault.[8] In November 2009, Netgear upgraded its iSCSI SAN target to LIO.[9]
Stora - A newer addition to the NAS line is the Stora line of products. Aimed to be consumer friendly, easy to set up and configure, and complemented by a software suite for user-friendly backup and storage, Stora products bring file server functionality to the home user. DLNA-certified, Stora products will serve media to DLNA devices, such as Netgear's own EVA-2000 Digital Entertainer Live, or other DLNA-compliant products such as the Western Digital WD TV Live.
Netgear outsources some of its manufacturing to other electronics companies, including Askey Computer Corporation, Asus, Cameo Communications, Delta Networks, Foxconn, Senao and SerComm. Netgear believes that by outsourcing its manufacturing it is able to deliver a better cost price to consumers as well as keeping the quality to their expected standard.[10]
Some internet enthusiast sites reported buggy products in consumer wireless routers during 2003. For example, there was a class action lawsuit against the Netgear WGT624, claiming it contained faulty hardware or firmware.
Netgear's Platinum II Enclosure (a case design used in most of Netgear's consumer products) was winner of a 2004 Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum,[11] created in conjunction with NewDealDesign.