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Cisco Plans Its Home Invasion
theodp writes "Despite lots of scars from earlier consumer craziness which included an Internet-connected fridge, Newsweek reports Cisco has set its sights on your living room, including videoconferencing which would let CEO John Chambers watch his beloved Duke basketball with far-away relatives. While recent acquisitions of Linksys and Scientific Atlanta make Cisco the only company that can come in on top of technology that's already inside homes, some skeptics say speaking to the consumer is simply not in Cisco's genes."
Just because the CEO thinks something is cool doesn't mean the general public will. I've used all kinds of high end video conferencing systems and none of them come anywhere close to replicating the experience of being in the same room with other people. And that's in a business setting. The difference between being together and being hooked up on video conference would be even greater for social situations. Throw in the lesser quality that they're going to have to go with for a home system over a business system for cost reasons and things look really dim. Which isn't to say there would be any market, just that the experience is not likely to be compelling enough to become a big seller.
I've been hearing about?
Is it good, or is it whack?
The dude writing the article should not should not just copy/paste something produced by Cisco market department. The remote controll as it is today is quite simply not suited for this expanded functionality, and I like my remote control to be small and not a big keyboard.
"...are you ready?"
I thought cat 5 was rated for a house with 5 cats...
I'm not worried. I have a panic room.
Technically you could include the tensile strand but its not a true strand per se...cat6 usually has that plus a plastic tensile strand but cat5 simply follows cat 4...just a coincidence...
who wrote this article, the marketing department =)
"television, telephone and Web services will flow into living rooms over the same fat Internet pipe"
They already do, it's called Comcast
Are Cisco intent on stopping all social interaction of any kind? If i want to watch the football and ogle the cheerleaders with some friends, i generally invite them over to the house, light up a barbecue and get beer out of the fridge. Cisco possibly suspect that we are all germophobes who hate leaving the confines of our house or interacting with humanity of any kind. Humanity may be evolving, but there is still that caveman/woman in us that needs to have our own social groups and interact with them. Half of the human language is based on physical presence, and this just takes all of that away. John Chambers must be living in some deluded Lawnmower Man fantasy land.
WTF is "Basketball"?
- Neighborhood Nerd
Category 5? New kind of wiring?
Is this really true anymore? The kinds of hardware resources that used to be required for "high end" solutions are now commonly found in consumer grade hardware, and with the advances and proliferation of broadband in the home, maybe the quality issue is not really an issue anymore...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The only way consumers will have any control is if Cisco-SA-Linksys stay the hell out of the content business and have enough money and clout to tell the content business to get stuffed.
Otherwise it's Sony all over again. The consumer isn't seen as the real customer.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"While recent acquisitions of Linksys..." 3 years ago.
Microsoft, Intel, AMD and now Cisco all have this strange belief (mostly via their idiot CEOs) that they're going to make this triumphant entry into peoples' living rooms. I'm afraid they are PC software and hardware companies, and nothing more. They just don't have what it takes in the same way as Apple, LG and other consumer electronics companies do.
There's also the issue of the use OF DRM, and the paradox that the only way you can make a digital home is to make content flow like water i.e. it's free (like peoples' MP3 collections today) or ridiculously cheap. There's no way that's going to happen legitimately.
There's also the issue that the average home user can't afford a home network, a central Windows Media server or ridiculously expensive Cisco equpment.
These silly PC companies are all pissing patterns in the snow.
That article is from 2000
Until holography becomes available(Star Wars?), I don't think the experience will be quite like having them actually there. Even then it may not compare. OK, I'm dreaming...
I will forever be a student.
"We may request that the money be sent to Europe for your collection."
HA HA
They want you to send money to Europe for YOUR collection.
If Cisco plans to "invade" homes, they'll have to drop their IOS crap. Or at least develop a graphical management system. Command lines are fine and all, but anyone who dealt with IOS will tell you they wished they could set simple things via a graphical interface. And home consumers will never consider buying a product that they can configure only via a shell.
.. not that you're wrong, but because *before* people have to deal with that, Cisco will have to make their equipment works out of the box with everybody else's.
That means Cisco is going to have to step boldly into the '90s and get MII autoconfig working.
some skeptics say speaking to the consumer is simply not in Cisco's genes
does that even mean anything? Oh, wait, yes it does: it means they haven't, they aren't, and they won't. Speaking to the consumer isn't in the utility companies' genes either, and yet somehow we're all getting our electricity and Internet connection... Find a need and fill it, I always say.
If they really didn't have it, they have already assimilated that particular strand of DNA:
Product line.
Dan Kan'onji? Is that you?
The home networking scene is a mess! There are overlapping wireless frequencies everywhere and plenty of security holes. Linksys has done well, but so much more is possible. How about for starters; whole-property roaming coverage, media server hooked to my stereo, backup storage, a bot system to handle my chores, multi-channel video capture, an inbound VPN listener for access into my home network while out and about, and a personal Web server. I welcome cisco into my home if it can give me these things - and it can. However, I am a consumer and demand much from my sources of technology - including transparency.
Duke sucks.
Wrong site. You want Fark . . . . .
It's an eNeticon Appliance! =P
Cisco obviously has the technology, it's the marketing that needs to change. I guarantee that my mother would have trouble identifying Cisco's core technology and even if she knew of their domain, would have trouble identifying them as a brand she should look for at Best Buy. -- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/
I know it is just a nit-pick, but using the example of video conferencing with friends that are so far away made me think about game broadcast blackout areas. I mean, how can I watch a football game with friends across the country if they're not "allowed" to watch the game anyway?
Or, more to the point... will the NFL/MPAA/[insert anti-digital copying lobby] go after this device since, to get around said blackout, I could point it at my TV and share the experience with said friends?
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
(previously on Slashdot...) Non-business customers won't tolerate the scam that Cisco make you go through when buying second-hand kit -- that they make sure you "relicense" the embedded software to the new owner when selling on your old kit (the software that's completely irrelevant to anything other than the hardware they sold it with). The list price of a "relicense" is usually 60-90% of the original hardware cost ... Cisco say they're only getting what's due to them but it's just rather dubious attempt at control over a legitimate after-market.
I'm not sure that the business culture that produced this kind of revenue scraping is going to know how to sell to the general public.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Cisco has no idea how to research, design, build and mart consumer focused electronics. It's not as easy as having a bunch of pocket protectors and a corporate sales force.
They would be better off coming up with their own brand of soda.
It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive Earthmen or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the electrons will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new silcon overlords.
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
It's like, 1 more...
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
So that brings the total number to nine, by my recollection.
± 29 dB
just for the non-geeks in the audience (there might be some) cat 5e is actually eight wires (but only 1 2 3? and 5? are in use (they are colored Blue/Bluewhite and Orange/Orangewhite) bonus GeekPoints with the clip down what is the correct wiring for Straight -Crossover and Rollover cables?
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The others are most certainly in use. They're grounded wires twisted around the signal carrying wires. Try not connecting them and then running a decent length of cable in a moderately noisy environment.
"...John Chambers himself keeps three TiVos in his home, while Cisco senior VP Mike Volpi was a TiVo beta tester."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11768175/site/newsweek/
Isn't it obvious that TiVo with its industry best less than 1 percent churn rate, friendly UI, and increasing value propostition is the front end of Cisco's hardware pipe to the house?
Actually the other 4 are used for POE and gigabit ethernet.
I don't know about the states, but around here when we say "home invasion", we mean "Kick in the door and beat the crap out of the residents so we can take their stuff."
It's a term they use in the criminal code too; it's not slang.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Broadband speed and availability better be cheap. Yes, I want 10Mbits up and down for $19.95 a month (unlimited).
First, pins 1,2,3 and 6 are in use. 1 TD+, 2 TD-, 3 RD+, 6 RD-.
On a straight through cable both ends would be:
pin # wire color
1 white w/ orange
2 orange
3 white w/ green
4 blue
5 white w/ blue
6 green
7 white w/ brown
8 brown
For a Cross-over cable, on one end you would just swap wires
1&3 and 2&6.
You've got me on the rollover cable. Never heard of it.
Jeez, it must be tough being the super-successful CEO of a super-successful company. You come up with this great idea to invade people's living-rooms - why bother to be asked in? - and then learn that you'll have to take your place in the queue. A few other guys are eager to knock the door down and start lifting Joe Sixpack's wallet: Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, Sony, Samsung, AOL Time-Warner, Google, Amazon, a dozen telcos, a couple of dozen huge media combines like NI, several hundred ISPs, a clutch of VOIP outfits, Blockbuster, Hollywood, the music industry, major retail chains, and a few thousand internet fraud artists and phishing rings. One at a time boys!
I guess this is some kind of bullshit bubble. There aren't enough living-rooms to go round to service this lot even once, and when folks discover that the "living-room of the future" offers the same crap TV as today except with overpriced and murky video-conferencing, they are likely to fit a few new locks on the door and get out the big scissors when they see Mr Suit's fingers straying towards their wallet again. Me, I'm going to stay inside and watch a couple of dozen CEOs brawling and shouting on the lawn outside.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Let's see what Cisco has done with one of their product lines - the venerable WRT54G. They've taken the G, then the GS, chopped the RAM, chopped the flash, installed an OS that can't be readily enhanced (and charges a royalty), released a buggy-as-all-getout software image, and raised the price. Linksys has sold dozens of these things by making a good product in the consumer space, then Cisco [apparently] came in and screwed up the company. I've recommended hundreds of these over the past few years and that's been thoroughly squelched.
Don't get me wrong, I love a 3560 switch as much as the next guy, but their success in the technology aisle at Staples is a stinker.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I find this comment hilarious and unbearably ironic. Especially considering the source, a bunch of Linux geeks who love nothing more than to wax on for hours about how they changed two lines of kernel code and re-compiled it themselves? Apparently for those code-tweaking folks, this:
!
interface fastethernet0/1
ip address 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
ip nat inside
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
ip address 52.123.49.52 255.255.255.0
ip nat outside
!
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 52.123.49.1
ip nat source-list 1 pool outside overload
ip nat pool outside 52.123.49.52 52.123.49.52 netmask 255.255.255.0
access-list 1 permit 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255
is just too damn complicated, and we need a GUI to configure our routers. To borrow a phrase from the Linux lovers' handbook, you don't deserve anything as great as IOS. Just go buy a Mac, you loser!
I really don't think they are planning on selling the standard home user a 7200VXR chassis!
The way cisco works, I doubt they'd care as long as they paid up, even if it means they gave up their firstborn for the term of the contract. I'd only be worried when I start seeing "Eternity" on their site as a valid option for a contract term for CCO access to support.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I always wondered why they made us short white guys even play it in high school. I mean, give me a break. There is such a thing as stark physical reality. I wanted to like shoot pool or go target shooting or something, but NO-O-O-O, HAD to go out and play with some thing big as a beachball and try to chunk it up through some small hoop at the second story level. At least that is what it seemed like to me.
nuts... what a waste of time, only thing I got out of it was a way to dodge pitchers of beer from jocks in bars. I would bet them I could palm a basketball for a pitcher. They would go "You're on!". Go out to car, get a basketball, come back into bar,hold it in two palms, say "pay up, I never specified how many palms I had to use".
They should adjust basketball by average height of the players. Todays pros and college (pro version 2) teams with 7 foot plus freaks got no business using hoops that aren't at least around 20 feet off the floor. The balls need to be 4 feet in diameter and weigh 30 lbs. Leyt's see some hundred point games then. I wanna see those "athletes" slam dunk THAT bad boy. How hard is it for some elevator human to reach up 2.5 inches and "slam dunk" something looks like a softball in their hands??
big fat joke
And *football*, give me a break part two, why don't they just admit reality and allow all the steroids and speed and pain killers they can handle, along with interspecies play. Why live the lie? Is there *really* that much difference from those guys and like gorillas or like oxen with helmets and gear on? Make it at least interesting for the real humans to watch....
MAYBE not every group of friends is in a 30min drive radio from each other, ever think about that?
in other words, i think this push is to overcome too long distances, not to overcome too short distances.
Oh shit... Just another way to sucker in those college grads who paid many thousands of dollars for their education...only to repay it back at minimum payments. The person in the cubicle next to me has a student loan of $43K and is haveing a very hard time of it. They're close to living in their car only because their parents live on the east coast and they don't want to move back. Most of the graduates are chipping in to buy cable at one person's apartment, just so they can say they have high speed internet. This is aimed at the jocks..who didn't have any brain away. This is getting so crazy. I pity the fool.
comcast-sub03225697>
Password:
comcast-sub03225697#set vod op adult yes
comcast-sub03225697#set vod channel 561 on
comcast-sub03225697#set vod purchase hotsexynudenurses-ep1 confirm
I don't see them being too swift on the need for enabling one-handed remote use among today's cable and satellite users. Sort of like Cisco writing Windows. It would be like using Linux to surf for pr0n. Oh, wait...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
cat 5 wasn't new in 2000 either.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Anyone else have visions of a $2000 4MB Flash PCMCIA card inserted rectally in the privacy of one's own kitchen?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
it's perfectly legitimate assuming part of the purchase involves signing some sort of actual pen and paper contract licensing the software. unlike most EULA's which tend to only stand up in court along the lines of "if you do x we will do y" and the buyer suing over action y, if you sign a contract that the license is non-transferable and the software is licensed not sold then you have no right to transfer the license.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
That's funny, around where I live, there's hardly any home invasions when anyone is at home. For real, there's crime of course but home invasions are almost non existent. the only cases I hear about are illegal alien drug dealers invading the places of other illegal alien drug dealers. who cares about those people??
It's not illegal to use deadly force here if you are threatened inside your home, you aren't compelled into instant victim hood like it is in the UK. Criminals know this here. Say what ya want about other sucky things about the US, but when it comes to criminals inside your house, we have (mostly) a system that works for people who choose to take advantage of it. others, oh well..no cure for stupidity..
In the US, if you are a "professional victim", it is almost entirely your own fault because of your personal "victim" mindset and where you choose to live and how you act. You can live in la la la fantasy land where nothing bad happens, OR, choose to live in reality and take apprpriate and sober and reasonable precautions.
Caveat: if you live in Chicago or NYC or DC or some other weird foreign place like that that isn't really any part of the "real" USA you could very well become a victim inside your own home. Tough titties for YOU then, no sympathy.
That's YOUR call, not society's call, if you voluntarily give up your nads and brains to live some place "trendy". It's all about choices.. there's crime everywhere, no one disputes this, just some places allow potential victims to actually resist crime and criminals and fight back, because the locals fully realise that cops can't be babysitting you 24/7...
And no, I really don't want to hear anything about some poor rapist or other home invader who got shot, too bad, he deserved it. Once you are inside the home, it makes perfect sense to assume the worst from the criminal and act accordingly. Anything else is totally illogical. Places that don't allow people to resist criminals, and where criminals rights inside your home trump yours, are criminal police states, live there at your own peril and take your beating or rape like a true subservient police state slave should, and be damn proud how civilized you are.
Me, I enjoy being a bit more barbaric and free. Choices. I'll take a higher risk quotient for more freedom.
Too complicated for you? maybe?
OK let me bring some insight as to what potential is avaiable for Cisco to enter the home market.
h tml?CMP=ILC-001) also brings them in to the home security market.
Time Warner is one of Cisco's biggest customers. Time Warner is also a huge player in the broadband and home cable market.
Cisco's aquisition of Scientific Atlantic brings a Cisco owned product in to the home user cable market.
Cisco's recent agreement to purchase SyPixx Networks Inc (http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/corp_030706.
Now let's put the peices together.
Time Warner and Cisco are partners. Time Warner purchases Cisco equipment to provide VoIP and broadband services. Now lets add in a set top cable box. It is not unfeasable that Cisco will develop a way to utilize its virtual private storage solution in to this equation. What does this mean? Cisco becomes a service like TiVo. In fact take this to the service provider level instead of the home user level. Virtual Private Storage provisioned out to ever customer Time Warner has. Can you imagine 200+ channels of on demand video streams over IP to your TV through the cable box? Every single channel Time Warner provides stored on cisco storage clusters to provide consumers with prerecorded (or live) video 24 hours a day! It is actually a TiVo killer unless you want to record, but I dont think Cisco will leave that capability out of its set top boxes when this solution is offered.
Now add home surveilance in to the equation. Not only will your cable be provided on demand via IP video streams, 24 hour a day surveilance is now available. A home security system for your house provided by Cisco Systems, fully integratable to be accessed by your cable set top boxes so you can be weary of intruders before they know you are aware of them. Not only that, the slightest storage capability of these set top boxes can record the video and archive it on a storage solution offered by Cisco Systems, and remember, all provided through Time Warner Cable service.
For those that say Cisco is incapable of speaking to the home user market on the home user level, I have one word for you. Linksys.
-anonymous cisco employee
ps. Attn Cisco: GIT'R DONE! I love this company!
Cisco has many web based configuration utilities. Every GUI from configuring 2900 series switches, to PIX firewalls, to the Cisco Call Managers.
Ask google before posting dumb accusations.
Just what I don't need.......more spam delivered via the internet to my fridge. I allready got a can of it in there now.
~Later~
You know, I can just see some real tech guy, testing him to see how much disinformation he can get away with, trying not to choke with laughter..
Real Tech Guy: hehe. And uh, so we have this new hightech stuff that's just out on the market, it's called "category 5" cable. They uhm, they call it that because it's like hurricanes. Like, a category 5 hurricane is super powerful. So the network manufacturers stole that idea, and a category 5 cable is super powerful. Like a hurricane.
Brad Stone: huh. thats so cool.
Real Tech Guy: And uh, (choking sounds, as he tries not to laugh) uhmm, what else. So anyway, Cisco, they --
Brad Stone: Sysco?
Real Tech Guy:
Brad Stone: Mmmhm. I've heard of that.
Real Tech Guy: You can just call them "IRC" for short. hehehe. hhehehe...
Brad Stone: Thanks man! I'm gonna write all this up right now!
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
For those that say Cisco is incapable of speaking to the home user market on the home user level, I have one word for you. Linksys.
Having the technology pieces in place is less than half the battle. The reason people are skeptical about Cisco's ability to deliver on this promise has to do with Cisco's roots and core focus. It's very difficult to turn a large company that made its fortune selling routers to Fortune 500 comapnies into a company that can successfully package and market its vision for the living room.
Cisco may be able to pull it off. Keep in mind, however, that cable companies are having a tough time getting consumers to buy into their digital convergence schemes, even though they're already in everyone's living rooms. It's not unreasonable to be skeptical about Cisco's claims.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I told you never to call me on this wall! This is an UNLISTED wall!!
- spaceballs
I am sure that this companies stock will go up several points in the next couple weeks just based on this story!
Stephanie Sexton
Cisco is prolly thinking about home networking. Its the area every tech. major thinks is the way to acheive the "Third Paradigm". http://witopia.blogspot.com/2006/03/ubicomp-rumina tions.html
Ya, and HLS will throw in a few billion to control what you watch, sniff your packets, read the contents of your refrig, in case you have to much beer in there, read and store your hard drives, and rearange your po^v^v files. Deliver your summons direct to your tv set.
Really looking forward to the home invasion I am.
Non-business customers won't tolerate the scam that Cisco make you go through when buying second-hand kit -- that they make sure you "relicense" the embedded software to the new owner when selling on your ....
Not only this but they are going to have change their entire support model for the consumer area.
Consumers are not going to purchase yearly SmartNet contracs on EVERY device so they can get firmware aka IOS upgrades on their products. They are not even going to play the game of purchasing the cheapest SNT contract on one device to get access to IOS, let alone renew it yearly.
Cisco would enjoy a broader reach into the SOHO, small business, and power user market if they were to make their firmware upgrades available, for FREE.
Also come on Cisco wheres the replacement for the UBR924/925's ? ? ? Wheres the 926? ? With SIP ports instead of H.323 and with the ability to get back into the router section while the crapble co locks the modem part down from changes? ? The 924/925 where the peferct home, SOHO, and small business device, just ahead of their time and with a few quirks that easily could be worked out. You've got the relevant parts between Cisco, Linksys and now with SA!
1311393600 - Back to Black
They just need to remember that for a home audience, there's a lot more to go around in terms of competition, and their 'name recognition' means nothing to those that don't understand the nature of Cisco's business. There are so many inherent biases to Cisco products (the PIX, their routers, etc) that we forget, in the networking world at least, that there are other good offerings out there.
That, and home users are not going to pay an arm and a leg just to have something that is stamped "Powered by Cisco". Make a good product, make it affordable and competitive with others, and Cisco has a shot here. If they want to jack up the rates because of some preconcieved notion about their product lineup, they will find quickly how the consumers at large will reject them. As I said, home users don't know and don't care what Cisco does.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
A slow connection doesn't mean you can't have a GUI, it would just have to be one more like a browser and less like Remote Desktop. One where the set of commands available and the windows and menus for parameterizing them are driven client side, and a limited set of commands are sent over the network as you make GUI decisions. Small bandwidth doesn't have to eliminate a GUI - just look at the simplicity of early browsers working over low-baud modems, or early online games like Quake working over the same. You can get a lot done with a graphical interface, bandwidth high or low. You just have to be smart about it.