Netgear Drivers Update

Netgear Drivers Update

Company Name: NETGEAR

Description: Netgear is a computer hardware manufacturer specializing in networking equipment, founded in January 8, 1996 as a subsidiary of Bay Networks. As a part of the said company, Netgear functioned as a company within a company.

On August 1998, Nortel acquired Bay Networks and all its subsidiaries. Nortel wholly owned Netgear as its subsidiary until March of 2000. By then, Netgear began changing its relationship with Nortel by buying back shares of the company. Eventually, Netgear was merely third party-owned by Nortel. The company continued to buy shares until it purchased all controlling interest from Nortel. It gained full independence from Nortel in February 2002.

Netgear’s founder, Patrick Lo, currently acts as the Chairman and CEO. Christine M. Gorjanc acts as the Chief Financial Officer, and Mark G. Merrill is the Chief Technical Officer. Its headquarters can be found in Santa Clara, California. Netgear, as of the fourth quarter of 2007, employs 518 people. The company’s revenue in 2007 reached 727.8 million dollars.

Netgear, as part of the Communications Equipment industry, identifies small businesses and consumers as its target market. Its products, which include routers, gateways for cable/DSL, servers, hubs, interfaces, wireless access points and switches, are used in connecting small business PCs to PCs at home to each other and to the Internet.

It produces its merchandise in Taiwan and China through third-party contractors. Some of the outsourced manufacturers include Foxconn, Delta Networks, Asus, Askey Computer, Sercomm, Sanao and Cameo Communications. Netgear claims it outsources production of its merchandise to be able to deliver to consumers quality products at competitive prices. 3Com Corporation, D-Link and Cisco-Linksys LLC are the company’s major retail competitors.

Traditional retailers, direct market resellers, broadband service providers, value added resellers and online retailers make up the sales channel network of Netgear. They cover North America, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, Africa and Europe. Examples of their distributors are Tech Data and Ingram Micro. Tech Data is responsible for 14% of Netgear’s sales in 2007, while Ingram Micro covered 17% of its sales. Best Buy and Circuit City are some of their retailers. Sales are also made directly through the use of Netgear’s online store.

The company’s largest markets are the United Kingdom and the United States. The United Kingdom was responsible for 52 percent of the 2007 revenue, while the United States produced 38%. Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA) and the Asia Pacific Region markets were quickly growing. EMEA had a growth rate of 28%, while the Asia Pacific Region had a rate of 34%.