» INTERVIEW
SECURING CONNECTIVITY Amanulla Khan, Managing Director of Linksys Middle East, Turkey & Africa discuss how the networking leader is focusing on delivering solutions integrating latest technologies to address evolving market trends Discuss the focus on expanding your solutions? As leaders in the market, we are always looking to offer reliable solutions to consumers and businesses because we understand the importance of strong and steady technology. For both our consumer and business segments, we are simultaneously working to expand our WiFi solutions by integrating the latest and greatest technologies such as WiFi 6 and 6E and/ or the newest iterations of Mesh WiFi. We also do this by combining different functionalities into our solutions in line with IoT ecosystems. We’re also proud of Linksys HomeWRK for Business, the first ever enterprise solution to deliver secure network connectivity for both corporate and personal needs in one easy-to-setup unit optimized for business applications and collaboration tools. In a similar vein, Linksys HomeWRK for Education will bring reliable connectivity and security to
24
students at home. The HomeWRK solutions are secured by Fortinet who bring their expertise to safeguard cyber threats introduced by home networks. We believe technology should be accessible to everyone, so we aim to make our solutions easy to use and reliable. How do you see the next few years in terms of market trends and growth for Linksys? Our business will grow in many ways. In terms of technology, we expect 6E and Mesh to be more commonly adopted amongst consumers and our product roadmap will reflect that demand. We expect the same for 5G as it becomes more accessible to the mass market through ISP infrastructures being setup across the country. In relation to our business initiatives, we expect retail to expand their online presence in the region, which will demand more reliable networks. ISPs are on their
CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
way to offering higher-end solutions and Mesh WiFi products as the demand for higher speeds and efficient networking grows. We will be working closely with them during these developments. We are looking at a shift for SMEs to move to a subscription-based pay-as-yougrow model as they become less reliant on large infrastructures. Our Linksys Cloud Manager solution is already enabling this and we expect more businesses to move to this model. Discuss your focus around SMEs and Large Enterprises We have always had great relationships with SMEs which we will continue to grow through offering the cloud managed access points (Linksys Cloud Manager), switches, and routers. This segment has grown for us at a steady pace so we will continue to add solutions to meet these demands. We plan to recruit more SMEs
