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Cisco Moving On Set-Top Boxes
nevermindme writes "Cisco has agreed to plunk down a whopping $6.9bn for Scientific-Atlanta, hoping to take a major share of the set-top-box market and push video efforts. The networking giant will pay $43 per share in cash for Scientific-Atlanta ($5.3bn) and swallow $1.6bn in debt. With the buy, Cisco acquires one of the more dominant set-top-box makers. In addition, it pushes well beyond the data center to touch consumers where they live."
I think you will see that they are not swallowing 1.6B in debt, but swallowing 1.6B in cash. ;-) RTFA
Ever hear of Linksys? Cisco bought them a while back. Lots of people have their stuff. Probably not as many as have cable, but it's still a substantial number of households.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the purchase price of $43 per share, or 5.3B, other than the fact that the transaction will essentially be a 6.9B red mark on Cisco's balence sheet (minus SA's revenues).
Exactly; they want in on what's going to be a big market. And this way, the cable/DSS companies buy Cisco routers to talk to Cisco cable access multiplexors or DSLAMS to talk to Cisco cable modems/DSL modems, (plugged into Cisco home gateway appliances, thanks to Linksys) and Cisco set-top boxes, hooked up to your Cisco VoIP phone. And so on.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I agree with the fact that Cisco is looking toward the conversion of data systems. Right now companies are offering cable TV, internet, and phone all through coax. In about 10 years from now, I predict that television entertainment will still exist, but it will evolve into something that cable carriers will stream into homes using their network connection to your home via coaxial connections, or via fiber. It makes perfect sense for Cisco to go into this market. it secures another market for them in the future, they can offer some of the equipment to make such the switch. And besides, who goes out to the store to buy a cable box? They're often provided by the cable companies themselves to be compatible (and expandable) with their existing infrastructure.
"10001110101 - periodic table with a centerpiece of mind" -Clutch
I believe the article is wrong.. SFA has $1.6b in cash, not debt. CSCO will be paying $6.9b, but the effective price will be $5.3b since they will be acquiring the cash on SFA's balance sheet.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=SFA
Sagem is already making something like this in France, with an ISP called FREE.
You get 20 mbps, digital cable, Internet, phone, router functionality, Wi-Fi coverage, along with Ethernet and USB ports... VoD is almost here. The box is called a Freebox.
They added a few months ago something cool: you can stream media from your computer to the set-top box, which is plugged into a TV.
And you get all this digital goodness for something like $35 a month (30).
As quoted here:
Or here.
Wrong, Cisco has the majority of the backbone of the internet too. Last I read, Cisco had approximately 70% of the low-end, 80% of the mid-range, and 70% of the high-end marketshare. Juniper's only significant marketshare was in the high-end, and it had about 25%. It is now estimated this marketshare they do hold will now be decimated since Cisco came out with their high-end, fully-threaded IOS. Cisco gear can now run circle around Juniper's. Google "Cisco CRS-1" to find out more.
"Four T640s add up to 1.28 Tbit/s of traffic (that's without counting ingress and egress traffic separately). That pales in comparison to Cisco's 46-Tbit/s maximum on the CRS-1, but Juniper officials say they were going for pragmatic appeal rather than record-setting numbers"
--lightreading
"The timing of Cisco's announcement is also important. After all, Ogle notes, Cisco has steadily ceded share to rival Juniper networks over the last several years, such that Juniper now controls 25.8 percent of the market, compared with Cisco's still dominant 71.1 percent. (Cisco once controlled 90 percent of this market), according to Synergy Research's Q4 2003 Router Equipment Share report. The CRS-1 - which Ogle concedes is a "revolutionary new product" -obliterates the long-time performance edge that Juniper has enjoyed, and makes a strong case that Cisco is once again the vendor of choice for routing equipment - up to and including, Ogle says, the routing core."
--TCPMag
Sounds to me like you have read all of Cisco's marketing hype and never seriously looked at Junipers. A couple of points
1) Cisco has **JUST** release in the last 12 months a NEW, re-written Threaded and Modular IOS. Juniper have had one from the beginning.
2) Who needs 46Tb at the centralised core? In reality, data flows between nodes in a distributed network. Junipers T640 plus matrix makes sense and is by far more cost effective and read, **scalable**. Just buy one T640, then another when you need it
3) Name any large ISP that prefers the latest and greatest OS on their routers. More like tried and tested is better.
4) Licensing. Say not more. Juniper have only 5 purchasable options. Cisco? never bothered counting beyound my two hands.
5) Security. HAHA. Would you ever consider an OS with as many backdoors? Who can truly trust IOS?
6) Live configuration changes. Ever typed in an incorrect ip address and lost access to the box. Ever wanted the router to roll back the changes or provide a means of reviewing the changes before proceeding. Juniper has offered this for the last 5 years. (see "confirmed commit")
7) Consistent module interfaces across the majority of the product line.
I like Cisco. It is a very good platform to learn networking with. But, for the serious core/backbone operator, Cisco is a totally un-reliable and problem ridden platform. Sure they have lots of "nice" features, but for the serious core operator, there is only one real choice.
Just ask the many Telco's that purchased 12000 Series routers. Not only were they unreliable, you can't use the line cards in any other cisco model. Then Cisco released the CRS-1. Good luck writing off that investment.