14 DAY TRIAL // Cisco Systems has announced that the company will soon unveil new lines of consumer products, such as video set-top boxes. The company aims at taking the lead in the consumer electronics business, just as they have managed to conquer the telecom and corporate sectors with their networking gear.
According to the company's vice president of consumer marketing, Ken Wirt, Cisco is planning to launch a new line of set-top boxes and home-networking gear in January, at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.
Cisco is the bigest networking equipment manufacturer in the US, and the company's industrial line of products addresses telephony and cable companies, as well as Internet Service Providers. Cisco tends to expand over the consumer market too, since the company has acquired Linksys and set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta.
Vice president Ken Wirt confirmed that the company's new set-top boxes will feature Cisco's network gear, but he refused to disclose further details about their technical specifications until the January Consumer Electronics Show.
"You might have a Wi-Fi access point,you might also have a router or a switch. You might have external hard drives," he said. "There are a lot of different things in your home that add up to a feature set. We're taking some of those things and putting them together in the box," Wirt continued.
According to Wirt, Cisco will also reveal new networking equipment at the Consumer Electronics Show. The new gear will feature higher traffic capacity, to answer consumers' needs of high definition video content and voice-over-IP telephony.
As for the two Cisco acquisitions, Linksys and Scientific-Atlanta, the company is determined to re-brand and join them under the Cisco name, although Linksys is a well-known brand and it will take up to two years to complete the unification process.