Cisco Systems hopes to expand its consumer presence with new products and services aimed at letting people share and access content at home and online.
Cisco's Linksys division makes home routers
The networking equipment maker is withholding details, but says the offerings will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Two of the products will enable people to share content – such as video – among computers and a variety of devices both at home and on the road.
A separate service targets media companies, letting organizations deliver online content to groups of people organized on social networks or in other cyber communities.
“We’ve come up with something in this area,” said Ken Wirt, vice president of consumer marketing, who declined to elaborate.
The products capitalize on trends Cisco sees underway online. First is the addition of Internet connectivity in a variety of new devices and appliances, such as picture frames. Second is the advent of visual networking, or the sharing of visual content online.
A final initiative will seek to license technology Cisco acquired with its acquisition of Pure Networks to consumer-electronics companies. The software, installed on mobile devices, tells networks how to format content so it can be viewed correctly on different devices.
Posted by Mark Boslet 
