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Report: Cisco to Target Consumers

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

January 16, 2006, 1:27 PM

In a move that will expand the company's market reach, Cisco Systems has plans to start selling a line of consumer products including phones, radios and home theater devices, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Cisco believes it can define itself by adding Internet connectivity to these devices, thus creating a new market.

Cisco is commonly known for its networking products, and owns Linksys, a maker of consumer network devices. Chief development officer Charles Giancarlo told the paper he believes Cisco's ties with Google and Yahoo will also give it an advantage over competitors. A release date for any new consumer products from the company was not given.

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By switchstance

posted Jan 16, 2006 - 9:04 PM

Ya know, it would be nice to see Cisco focus on improving on what they allegedly do "best". The more products they put out there the less they'll be focusing on their poorly designed routing and switching products.

I can see it now. "Oh the VOIP function on your new Wi-Fi phone will only work if you have the Engine 4+ Card". *vomit*

Score: 0

By AntiochMedia

posted Jan 16, 2006 - 3:37 PM

As a reference, D-Link does and has been doing this:

http://www.dlink.com/

Score: 0

By wwilder

edited Jan 17, 2006 - 11:22 AM

D-Link is owned by Cisco, just fyi

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 1:43 PM

No, Linksys is owned by Cisco (as the article mentions if you had read it).

Score: 0

By csgeek

posted Jan 16, 2006 - 11:19 PM

The real problem with these networked consumer products is financial feasibility. Why buy a network mp3 player when you can buy an ipod or other device that has its own hard drive

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 10:13 AM

Becaause your network can have a bajillion more files than your ipod.
Because a network transport and interface is a known set standard that will be here long after the ipod has moved on to "x" tech. Can you even get accesories or features added to first generation ipods anymore? Boy do they feel abandoned.

The ultimate portable device won't use wires or cables, but will use tcp/ip.

Score: 0

By wangotango

posted Jan 16, 2006 - 3:11 PM

We can only hope Cisco does better with this, than what they have done for Linksys.

Score: 0

By klingon379

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 2:20 AM

Linksys routers are the most reliable routers I have ever used. I am currently using the Linksys WRT55AG ver 2 dual band wireless network router and it has never froze or crashed once.

Apparently Linksys is using embedded Linux on nearly all of their wireless routers now which makes them far more reliable than D-Link or even Netgear.

Score: 0

By mdiorio

edited Jan 17, 2006 - 10:43 AM

I own an IT support company. We've had nothing but problems with every single Linksys device we've seen installed. Dead ports, random rebooting, DHCP server failures, lock ups...horrible experiences. We replace every one we find to be proactive and prevent future problems.

DLink is probably the most reliable we've used apart from Cisco. Some of Netgear's products are awesome, some suck. It's trial and error with them, especially with their VPN products. If you set up a single site to site tunnel, it's rock solid...if you any even one more VPN tunnel, it's flakey as heck.

We've also used Fortinet's FortiGate products with great success. You can't beat them on a price/performance ratio and in ROI for an all-in-one solution.

That said, Linksys makes decent products for home users. Good price point and decent set of features. But I wouldn't put one in a business if my life depended on it.

YMMV.

Score: 0

By klingon379

posted Jan 19, 2006 - 2:33 PM

I've only used wireless networking products from Linksys, D-Link and Netgear but I had a D-Link DI-784 dual band wireless router with two computers wirelessly connected to my network. If I tried downloading a large file on one computer while browsing the web on the other computer the router crashed.

I think the only good routers are ones that use Linux for their OS. I've yet to see a propietary router OS that actually works for very long.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 10:14 AM

I've seen three dead linksys routers. They have the single most sensitive power adapters on the planet. You *must* UPS/surge protect those devices.

Score: 0

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