D-Link 2006 Annual Report Download - page 10

D-Link is committed to drive revenue in North America
through a renewed focus on the sale of business-class
products to businesses of all sizes.
North America Business Network Equipment
(Billions/USD)
Notable Accolades
D-Link Draft 11N 650 Router Wins 4
1/2 of 5 Stars & Editor's Choice Award
from LAPTOP Magazine
D-Link xStack Storage Wins
VarBusiness Editor's Choice Award
D-Link's Internet Security Cameras
Win DICE Award From Digital
Connect Magazine
D-Link Wins Best of Interop Award for
xStack Storage iSCSI SAN Solutions
Case Study – City of Seattle
The mayor of the City of Seattle, Greg Nickels, initiated the creation of a pilot project that would offer free wireless access to the
Internet. The intent was to revitalize portions of the community by teaming with local businesses and other community organizations
to attract more customers to local business districts, support small businesses, encourage the use of public parks and facilities and enable
more citizens to access City services online. "Mayor Nickels believes that thriving businesses strengthen the city's neighborhoods. The
city views technology as a tool to help businesses attract more customers," said Greg Skinner, president of ACJ Wireless Networking
Solutions, the City of Seattle's partner in the project and a D-Link solutions integrator.
The City's Department of Information Technology headed up the project and acted as the designer, integrator and installer of the
wireless network infrastructure. Doug King, IT Project Manager, and his dedicated team set out to design and install a robust and
reliable WiFi infrastructure that would provide convenient and easy-to-use wireless Internet access to visitors and patrons of the
Columbia City and University District business areas and surrounding public parks.
D-Link 2006 Annual Report 7
While consumers outside the U.S. continued to purchase D-Link's full line of routers, access points and antennas to build their wireless home networks, the U.S.
market is quickly maturing in the consumer arena, highlighting the importance of Draft
802.11n as an emerging standard to spur a replacement cycle in the home router market.
That said, consumer networking continues to be one of the most popular retail categories as
homeowners expand their networks with IP cameras, media players, high-capacity storage
and VoIP devices, to name just a few products in D-Link's arsenal.
The U.S. business market shows strong potential with small, medium and large
corporations that have long been looking for quality networking solutions at reasonable
prices. D-Link North America has continued their renewed focus on the sale of business-
class products, putting special emphasis on government opportunities. This focused strategy
has gradually led to increased revenue in the region in 2006. D-Link expanded the breadth
of the business product portfolio with solutions complementary to new or existing network
architectures, including iSCSI storage, wireless switching and VoIP.
Recognizing the tremendous growth potential for both consumer and business products in
North America, D-Link continues to seize the burgeoning opportunities as they arise. For
instance, the company's sales efforts and channel engagement were bolstered last year by
partnering with major distributors to help the company further penetrate certain lucrative
vertical markets such as government, education and enterprise-level organizations. They
have found significantly increased demand for D-Link's business products that offer similar
or improved quality with more reasonable price points than those provided by D-Link's
traditional competitors. This demand is translating into sales up-side and long-term
relationships with a new set of customers.
As Draft 802.11n wireless LAN products gradually migrate to Pre-n, recent sales figures
indicate that n-based wireless LAN products are quickly gaining acceptance in North
America, which includes Canada, Mexico and the United States. During 2006, unit
shipments increased 76.8 percent, higher than any other D-Link product in the Wireless
LAN category.