We don't know how luckily we have it when it comes to wireless networking. Prior to the Linksys 802.11 router coming into the marketplace, wireless solutions were hodge podge and proprietary. This is the main reason the Linksys 802.11 comes in at number 16 of the top 25 technologies. 

Back in the day, if you wanted wireless connectivity you had to buy cards and software from a particular vendor. Even though there were wireless standards in place, very few manufacturers followed them. What you ended up with were dead end product lines and very frustrated customers.

Linksys came to the table as a small company out of nowhere in 1988. They adopted a standards based model very slowly, but one they did the wireless revolution was started.

Just like Microsoft is the standard office product, Linksys is the standard wireless product. 

Even though they are now part of Cisco, they have kept the standards based tradition intact and have embraced the open source community. This has lead to many people hacking the routers to bring advanced features to the masses.