Melco Holdings Inc. is a

family business A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making is influenced by multiple generations of a family, related by blood or marriage or adoption, who has both the ability to influence the vision of the business and the willin ...

founded by Makoto Maki in 1975 and is located in Japan. The company's most recognizable brand is Buffalo Inc. Buffalo Inc. is currently one of the 16 subsidiaries of Melco Holdings Inc., initially founded as an

audio equipment Audio equipment refers to devices that reproduce, record, or process sound. This includes microphones, radio receivers, AV receivers, CD players, tape recorders, amplifiers, mixing consoles, effects units, headphones, and speakers. Audio equ ...

manufacturer, the company entered the

computer peripheral A peripheral or peripheral device is an auxiliary device used to put information into and get information out of a computer. The term ''peripheral device'' refers to all hardware components that are attached to a computer and are controlled by th ...

market in 1981 with an

EEPROM EEPROM (also called E2PROM) stands for electrically erasable programmable read-only memory and is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers, usually integrated in microcontrollers such as smart cards and remote keyless systems, or as ...

writer. The name BUFFALO is derived from one of company's first products, a printer buffer and the name for the

American Bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...

(Buffalo).

Name

Melco's name stands for Maki Engineering Laboratory COmpany.

History

Melco Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 1986; currently its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacture of

random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost t ...

products,

Flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both u ...

products,

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply ( interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broa ...

products, CD-ROM/

DVD-RW DVD recordable and DVD rewritable are optical disc recording technologies. Both terms describe DVD optical discs that can be written to by a DVD recorder, whereas only 'rewritable' discs are able to erase and rewrite data. Data is written ('b ...

drives,

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magn ...

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

products, printer buffers,

liquid-crystal display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but ...

s, Microsoft Windows accelerators,

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

components and

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

accelerators. A subsidiary of Melco provides corporate services in Japan like

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

set-up,

computer terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal a ...

installation/set-up, computer education and computer maintenance. The company has also started selling

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It i ...

s in Japan.
Buffalo Technology (USA)
is the North American subsidiary of the group and is based in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. The company has been first to market on a number of new technologies.

A Timeline of Firsts

January 1999 – First Wireless Router December 2002 – First Draft-11g Wi-Fi Products Shipped November 2003 – First NAS Appliance January 2005 – First RAID NAS Appliance April 2006 – First Draft-11n Wi-Fi Products Shipped November 2009 – First USB 3.0 Storage January 2012 – First Draft-11ac Wi-Fi Solution Demonstrated at CES May 2012 – First Draft-11ac Wi-Fi products shipped June 2012 – First Thunderbolt + USB 3.0 Hybrid Device May 2013 – First DDR Memory Buffer DAS Drive

Corporate Structure

Products

* Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector *

Buffalo network-attached storage series The Buffalo TeraStation network-attached storage series are network-attached storage devices. The current lineup includes the LinkStation and TeraStation series. These devices have undergone various improvements since they were first produced, and ...

External hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...

* HD DVD Computer Drive *

AirStation Buffalo AirStation is the name given to a series of wireless LAN equipment sold by Buffalo Technology. Products * Residential gateways * Wireless LAN cards Use with third party firmware Many of Buffalo's residential gateways use Broadcom ...

(

Residential gateway A residential gateway is a small consumer-grade gateway which bridges network access between connected local area network (LAN) hosts to a wide area network (WAN) (such as the Internet) via a modem, or directly connects to a WAN (as in EttH), whi ...

) *

AOSS AOSS (AirStation One-Touch Secure System) is a system by Buffalo Technology which allows a secure wireless connection to be set up with the push of a button. AirStation residential gateways incorporated a button on the unit to let the user initiate ...

* Memory -

SO-DIMM A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computer ...

and

DIMM A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal compute ...

USB flash drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since fir ...

* UPnP Media Rendering Hardware File:TS6400DN Front View.png, TS6400DN Desktop File:TeraStation 6000.png, TeraStation with Hard Drives Included File:TS51210RN.jpg, TeraStation 51210RN Rackmount with 12-Bays File:TS6400RN front top.png, TeraStation 6400RN Rackmount with 4-Bays File:LSSOHO.jpg, LinkStation SoHo File:Kuro-box pro.jpg,

Kuro Box The Buffalo TeraStation network-attached storage series are network-attached storage devices. The current lineup includes the LinkStation and TeraStation series. These devices have undergone various improvements since they were first produced, an ...

Pro File:Kuro-box hg.jpg,

HG-WR File:Linkstationhg.jpg,

Linkstation The Buffalo TeraStation network-attached storage series are network-attached storage devices. The current lineup includes the LinkStation and TeraStation series. These devices have undergone various improvements since they were first produced, an ...

HG File:Terastation.jpg,

Terastation The Buffalo TeraStation network-attached storage series are network-attached storage devices. The current lineup includes the LinkStation and TeraStation series. These devices have undergone various improvements since they were first produced, and ...

File:Buffalo HD-H250U2.jpg, Drivestation

external hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...

File:Nintendo-Wii-DS-Buffalo-Wifi-USB-Connector.jpg, Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector File:Buffalo AirStation WBR-G54.jpg, A Buffalo

File:Buffalo LinkStation Pro and KuroBox Pro together.jpeg, LinkStation Pro and KuroBox Pro

Litigation

In late 2006, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

) won a lawsuit against Buffalo Inc. under which it would receive a royalty for every

WLAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

product worldwide. The lawsuits basis was that CSIRO was granted US patent 5487069 in 1996, which grants elements of 802.11a/g wireless technology that had become an industry standard. In June 2007, the federal court in Texas granted an injunction to prevent any more wireless products from shipping until a license agreement had been reached.Tim Higgins, TG Daily.
CSIRO shuts down Buffalo WLAN shipments
. June 20, 2007." On September 19, 2008, the Federal Circuit ruled in Buffalo's favor and has remanded this case to the district court ruling that the district court's Summary Judgment was insufficient on the merits of obviousness of CSIRO's patent. Therefore, this case will be tried again before the district court. In this connection Buffalo is hopeful that it will shortly be permitted to, once again, sell IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g compliant products in the United States.

References

External links

Buffalo's web page
{{Electronics industry in Japan Computer companies established in 1975 Computer memory companies Computer peripheral companies Electronics companies of Japan Computer companies of Japan Defunct defense companies of Japan Manufacturing companies based in Nagoya Japanese companies established in 1975 Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Japanese brands