Linksys is one of the leading brands of data networking hardware products, sold to home users and small businesses. Amanulla Khan, Managing Director of Linksys Middle East, Turkey & Africa joins a face-to-face conversation with The Integrator during GITEX Technology Week 2021 and discusses the range of enterprise-specific products offered by the company considering the increased need for secure remote work solutions.

Hello Mr. Aman! I want to formally thank you for giving us an interview for the October edition of The Integrator and sparing time for this face-to-face interaction. Hope you had excellent interactions with potential customers at the GITEX.

The COVID-19 pandemic seemingly shifted the professional landscape of work and collaboration. How do you react to it?

I think even the work culture started to change well before the pandemic. Solutions that accommodate office and remote work have been in development for a while now. A high percentage the US workforce wanted to work remotely and such demands were normalized even before the pandemic hit. However, business continuity plans of the companies after COVID-19 hit accelerated the need for remote working solutions, increased discussions on cyber security, and significantly blurred the line between consumer and enterprise, across the globe.

So, I think it isn’t going to be any different globally even if companies abstain work from home because everyone is moving towards a hybrid way of working. The biggest challenge then for all enterprises is the edges moved from the office, from the corporate network in the corporate offices to homes.

What you need is a unique network which provides you the performance, and access to all the resources, which are available in the corporate network, and it needs to be secured. So, security becomes a big concern as vulnerabilities increase. For example, if you have 200 branches at different locations, with 200 people working at different times, instead of having 20 branch offices, where everyone works at the same schedule.

Tell us about Linksys’ latest product HomeWRK that features remote work

HomeWRK is our first product, launched recently and that is secured by Fortinet. We are scaling it up for today’s enterprise needs to offer enterprise grade security and performance to working from home.

Do you have a strategic partnership with any video collaboration tools?

We are giving users the flexibility to prioritize the collaboration tool that they are using. Whether it is zoom or Microsoft Teams, or RingCentral, the user should be able to securely connect and collaborate. The HomeWRK device will be able to connect to multiple operational devices, such as mobile and computer, tablet, wearables, etc. for work or study purposes. There will be consistent speed ensured for each device.

The firewall, part of HomeWRK, will connect straight into the corporate network or enterprise network without having to connect to a VPN. It creates a tunnel that will be fully secured and this part of the network is fully managed through the company corporate IT team. Fundamentally, the enterprise network will be away from cyberthreats while each member at home access different things through the home network.

The major context of our discussion was security, Is Linksys aiming to enter an industry where critical operations (finance, bank, healthcare, security, etc.) take place?

Securing networks is probably the life solution for some enterprises, especially in spaces of finance, healthcare, banks, etc. For all these verticals, there is no better player and no better partner than Fortinet to secure networks.

We are partnered with Fortinet to secure our products and continue interacting with enterprises of all of these verticals. We educate customers on how well we secure our products and their networks and see business opportunities in doing it.