The world’s renowned computer company “Cisco” has recently purchased the Linksys Company run by Tamkang University Alumni Tsao Ying-wei at a price of US$500 million (equivalent to NT$17 billions).

Linksys was founded at the garage of Tsao’s home 15 years ago. During the past 15 years, the transaction has drastically been increasing annually. It totaled US$450 million in 2002 and the volume is projected to top the US$600 million mark this year—2003.

The business operation of Linksys accounted for 95 percent in North American market. Linksys is now expanding its business operation to Asia and Europe.

According to a report of a weekly magazine in the United States, Tsao is an alumnus of Department of Computer Science of TKU. It was said that he wasn’t interested in study at all when he was in TKU. Tsao went to the United States after retiring from military service. He encountered a mean boss in the United States when he was a part-time worker at a restaurant and changed his life ever since. He quitted his job and went to study again at the Department of Computer Science, Illinois University where he obtained double MBA degrees.

Tsao and his wife began their business in 1990. Tsao encountered a lot of difficulties such as having their products returned by customers. However, he learned a lesson from the returned goods: the idea “understanding what the market wants” became the motto of Linksys. Tsao grabbed the opportunity to expand the home network products after Window 95 appeared. Thus Linksys’ business grew from 50 percent to 100 percent annually and Linksys stood at 40 percent of the home network market in the United States.

Tsao still wore his T-shirt and jeans though he earned US$500 million in a short time. He said that he has not yet figured out how to spend the money. At present, how to expand the business operation of merged company to Europe is his first priority, Tsao added.