Cisco Puts Its Own Name On New Cable Set-Tops

CES Announcements Geared Around ‘Visual Networking’ Theme

By -- Multichannel News, 1/3/2008 11:41:00 AM

At the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas, Cisco Systems will announce new cable set-tops that will for the first time carry the Cisco brand -- replacing the long-time Scientific Atlanta moniker.

Cisco, which acquired Scientific Atlanta in 2006 in a deal worth $6.9 billion, has previously said it would consolidate consumer-oriented products around a common brand.

Ken Wirt, Cisco’s vice president of consumer marketing, said cable operators are already testing out set-top boxes in their labs with the Cisco brand. All new set-top products will be Cisco-branded, but Wirt noted that the company will not go back and rebrand existing SA product lines.

“Cisco’s profile with the consumer will be increased because there will be a bunch of boxes in their house with the Cisco logo on it that they interact with every day,” Wirt said.

The overarching theme for Cisco’s announcements next week will be “visual networking,” Wirt said, a phrase the company is using to refer to delivering any video to any device and providing personalized features.

“People want to watch video on their TV and their PC, and they want to watch the Internet video stuff on the TV, and they want to watch everything on mobile devices,” he said. “They want it to be a TV-like experience. It has to be ‘click and play’ and they want it to be very high quality -- vision is the highest developed of all human senses.”