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."

Comments

All media...

[Private Taco]

Personally I think it's about time the Internet, Phone, TV, music, and movies all become condensed into one distribution system.

Re:Oh

[PDXNerd]

You haven't used cable in an upgraded market lately. With a cable modem you get your Internet, and if you plug it into your cable set-top box you have streaming TV, movies on demand, dating on demand, news, weather, etc.

The cable box of the future will not be picking up the "cable" frequency per se, but rather handling a large amound of streaming traffic coming into the house. Perhaps Cisco might even make a cable-box/cable-modem/router all-in-one.

The future of cable is right around the corner. By the time Cisco adds their IP to a box and gets it to market, it will be here.

Too Much

[Jay Tarbox]

Cisco is trying to do too much crap. All sorts of acquisitions over they years that are all over the product map. They're trying to be everything to everybody and the house is going to fall down. There's already backlash from people (customers and potential customers) that think they're too arrogant and disorganized.

Re:Too Much

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> ...trying to be everything to everybody...too arrogant and disorganized

As may be, but Cisco is becoming the next Ma Bell (or at least Western Electric). They already have a lock on backbone and enterprise routing and switching; with Linksys they have a large chunk of the consumer Ethernet market, and here they are moving into the consumer cable plumbing market. Every byte you get from the Internet goes through a dozen Cisco boxes before it gets to you. Now we're going to start seeing the same thing in cable as well.

Re:Too Much

[Fatal67]

Close, but no cigar. Juniper actually has the largest share of public backbones. Cisco owns the edge and the IT networks.

Cisco buying SA is a good thing for SA. Their IP platforms have historically not been the most reliable around. Almost anything they have with IP on it is a product they resell for someone else. Cisco can actually give them the IP interface they need. As everyone knows, Video is moving to IP, and currently, noone stands out as the main player for video delivery. Alcatel has a head start, but Cisco could quickly make up that ground. Sounds to me like Cisco can now sell a "headend in a box". Cisco has long held a position in the cable infrastructure with their CMTS. This is not a new area for them.

Convergence of technologies and services

[Fox_1]

Cisco has been one of the leaders in VOIP technology -their office phone systems are really quite good-, as well as their more dominant role as a networking equipment provider. I can see them anticipating the convergence of network, phone, and tv services and acting to position themselves to be the dominant hardware provider. I know here I can get phone, internet, tv services through my local cable company, just as my local telco offers TV in addition to Phone, and Internet.

Here is MSNBC coverage . Somewhat more info on the Cisco viewpoints.

It's actually a very good fit..

[omgwtfroflbbqwasd]

[Disclaimer: I am an S-A employee] Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola are the main players in the Hybrid Fiber-Coax (HFC) infrastructure that the entire cable industry, and thus all of cable-based broadband Internet runs on. With the telcos getting into this market (SBC and Verizon), there is going to be a huge shift in the cable TV industry over the next few years. Cisco and S-A together will have the capability to merge cable (which consists of IPTV, Video on demand, DVR's, real-time video compression and content management), VoIP, and traditional Internet together in a way that no other vendor will be positioned to do. The HFC networks are already IP-based and interactive services will leverage this even more going forward.

Re:It's actually a very good fit..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's completely not true... I was part of a Cisco acquisition myself. The company I came on through did eventually get disbanded during the 2000/2001 layoffs, but that was due to product readiness and profits within the business unit. I've personally worked on many acquisitions and 95% of the people are glad to be acquired and most everyone stays with Cisco.

It's been over 5 years since I was acquired, and I can't think of a good reason to leave. It's tough to watch all of the Cisco bashing here on Slashdot... I understand everyone's perspective, but I think if everyone saw the big picture, they'd better understand Cisco's position. Cisco has a 96% retention rate, and it's definitely not because of the salaries....

Re:Oh

[AstroDrabb]

What does Cisco bring to the table that nobody else does or can?

Consolidation? I have a "digital" house. We have digital cable, digital Internet access and digital phone. My digital phone comes in to a digital phone/cable router box and then goes into a Linksys cable/dsl router. My digital cable comes in through a Scientific-Atlanta set-top-box which offers video on demand, HD and 100's of channels. What I would like to see is ONE box that can bring digital goodness to my house. I don't want multiple devices in my house. I want one. I cannot get VOD on my computer because only gets digital Internet. With one set-top-box in the house, any device could get any of the offered services. I can see an one-in-all set-top-box from Cisco that lets me have digital cable, digital Internet, digital phone, home router, VOD on any TV/computer, and WI-FI covering the house, media streaming, etc. Now that would be something I would like.