D-Link
| D-Link Corporation | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | Public (TSE: 2332) |
| Founded | 1986 |
| Headquarters | Taipei, Taiwan |
| Key people | Ken Kao, Chairman & CEO |
| Industry | Computer Networks |
| Products | Network hardware |
| Revenue |  $400 million
USD (2006) |
| Slogan | Building Networks for People |
| Website | www.dlink.com.tw |
D-Link Corporation is a Taiwanese company that manufactures wireless and Ethernet computer networking products for both consumer and SOHO users. The company was founded in 1986 by Ken Kao, Current CEO and Chairman. The corporate headquarters are located in Taipei, Taiwan. As of 2006, the company has offices in over 90 countries around the world. D-Link is the largest wireless LAN provider in Europe and the People's Republic of China.
To focus on brand businesses, D-Link decided to spin off the company's OEM/ODM business to "Alpha Networks" in 2003. In 2004, 17% of Alpha Networks shares was sold to Quanta Computers.
History
Datex Inc. [友訊科技] was founded in 1986 by seven founders; of the seven founders, Ken Kao remain as the CEO of D-Link Corporation, John Lee become the CEO of Alpha Networks, the other five are either retired, or employed by D-Link or D-Link group of companies.
Datex officially changed its name to D-Link Corporation in 1994, the same year that it went public, the first networking company in Taiwan to do so. The name change was due to hard time in explaining who Datex was and what Datex did, but its D-Link brand was already popular before 1992.
D-Link the brand was already successful before venturing into the OEM business, the first OEM customer in 1991 was IBM, and subsequently grew to include Netgear, Intel and Nortel to name a few.
Business
With the official spin off of its OEM/ODM manufacturing business in 2003, D-Link now concentrates fully on its branded business while referring most of the OEM contract work to Alpha Networks or to the group of companies it has investments in.
Controversies
Timeserver DDOS
In 2005, Poul-Henning Kamp, a FreeBSD developer, noticed that the Danish stratum 1 timeserver appeared to be the victim of a DDoS attack.[1] Research into the matter revealed that a number of D-Link network products were hardwired to consult stratum 1 timeservers (which sit at the highest level of the NTP hierarchy, and are usually intended for the exclusive use of other timeservers) directly for NTP information, instead of relying on their respective ISPs' timeservers. This activity violated accepted practices as well as wishes of the administrators of higher-level timeservers, often incurring significant expense in the process.[2]
D-Link is not the first company to engage in this behaviour. In 2003, Netgear caused similar problems[3] for the University of Wisconsin, which were eventually resolved.
This issue has since been amicably resolved by Kamp and D-Link.[4]
GPL Violations
On September 6th, 2006, the gpl-violations.org project prevailed in court litigation against the German branch of the company regarding D-Link's alleged inappropriate and copyright infringing use of parts of the Linux Operating System Kernel.[5] The judgment [6] finally provided the on-record, legal precedent that the GPL is valid and legally binding, and that it will stand up in court. However, while the court order provided restitution for the plaintiff, there was no injunction or other order preventing D-Link from continuing their offending activities.
See also
References
- ^ Researchers expose source of DDoS attacks against DIX timeservers. Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
- ^ Poul-Henning Kamp addresses D-Link directly. Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
- ^ Netgear inadvertently DDOSes UWis. Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
- ^ D-Link and Poul-Henning Kamp resolve NTP issue. Retrieved on 2006-05-02.
- ^ http://gpl-violations.org/news/20060922-dlink-judgement_frankfurt.html
- ^ http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf
External links
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