Foxconn Buys Belkin, Linksys, and Wemo | Hacker News Reader

Foxconn Buys Belkin, Linksys, and Wemo

theverge.com

96 pointsOberstKrueger13 comments

would change title to "Foxconn Buys Belkin (owner of Linksys and Wemo)" to make it sound less like a buying spree

interesting to attempt another China-US wireless tech acquisition. i dont think the current administration will look too kindly on this.

For some reason I thought Cisco was the owner of Linksys.

They were up until 2013.

I don't know enough details of this to tell you if the US government can slow it down or stop it. But in the long run, it doesn't matter.

Foxconn is the company, more than any other in the world, which knows how to make computer equipment. Asian, mostly Chinese, business networks are becoming the only ones that know how to make modern computers at all.

Western companies get hardware to market by having it made by those who know how to make it (i.e. Chinese partners). If the Chinese companies now want to sell things directly to consumers, there's nothing to stop them -- buying US companies might be the easiest path, but other paths exist.

In no way does this mean that the Chinese are going to come and economically dominate everything. But it is hubris to imagine that holding onto companies will prevent change.

> the only ones that know how to make modern computers at all

75% of Intel's fabrication plants are still in the US, so the core of modern computing is still domestically owned and operated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...

But for many other computer components, such as displays, it's incredibly difficult to find a U.S. firm that hasn't outsourced manufacturing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_liquid-crystal-display...

Foxconn is Taiwanese, not Chinese.

Doesn't that depend on who you ask?

That's a pointless nitpick.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn

> Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Foxconn Technology Group, is a multinational electronics contract manufacturing company headquartered in Tucheng, New Taipei, Taiwan.

This comment isn't too far from mistaking South Korea for North Korea.

That might not be so analogous. Does South Korea actually operate any businesses in North Korea?

(Aside: I'm currently a legal resident of the Republic of Korea.)

Hyundai did until South Korea shut down the joint economic zone in North Korea to protest a rocket launch in 2016:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region

It's not a perfect analogy because China already has nukes. If they didn't, it's plausible Taiwan would do the same in the face of Chinese saber rattling.

Haha, trust me, I'm Chinese, I know the difference. I was making a convenient generalization. By the same measure Broadcom was Singaporean but Trump didn't care.

All the more reason to run dd-wrt on my linksys router.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com