The non-exclusive agreement clears the way for the two companies to work on joint engineering and marketing efforts. The cornerstone will be verification of Intel's Centrino technology with currently available Linksys wireless access points.

Anand Chandrasekher, vice president of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, said the agreement will build on the Wi-Fi interoperability testing currently being performed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to simplify and speed the connectivity process. The Wi-Fi Alliance currently has no similar efforts underway, said Alliance Chairman Dennis Eaton.

Once verification is completed, approved devices will receive a special Centrino/Linksys logo, "Verified with Intel Centrino Mobile Technology." The verification process is currently underway.

That's the first step, said Charlie Giancarlo, Cisco's vice president and general manager of product development. "We will then work to develop notebook PCs based on Centrino that will detect Linksys wireless products with minimum effort, which will make it easier to build home networks and drive the development of new applications within the home."

The partners did not disclose details on future development efforts to simplify network set up. They did make direct reference to making the auto-detect and auto-configuration process easier.

By: DocMemory
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