For my take on Cisco’s new initiative:

http://viodi.com/2009/01/01/cisco/

The “smarter” network is being tackled by HNAP protocol and Network Magic Pro by Pure Networks.

this stuff is all from online mom’s groups. these women cut all demographic, regions and are key decision makers for much of this stuff.

cisco does not understand how to connect with these demographics. terms like telepresence and connected home are cool on presentations and in conferences. also what is value prop to consumer on a budget? what is the cool factor for the average consumer?

not sure off cisco will do it, but right now they are not focusing on what the consumer wants and needs.

“This holiday the vast majority of consumer electronics purchases will be connected,”—-Wow, really!

“Although they are digital, most of the high-definition televisions sold so far do not have Internet connections. But Mr. Hooper argues that televisions soon will also be connected to home networks and the Internet.”-TV is just a display. Why does it need to be connected to internet directly. It is like buying TV with DVD player built in….nobody wants that.

“We are all making this investment in high-definition television, but all we are doing with them is watching TV the same way,” Mr. Hooper said. “They can actually provide all sorts of experiences, whether it is viewing family photos or connecting to the Internet to watch video.”—-Duh. We are already using our HDTV for seeing family photos, connecting to internet, watching video!! Welcome to reality. Get a XBOX or AppleTV!!!

Mr. Hooper says Cisco has no interest in selling televisions. It will continue to make set-top boxes that bring in programs from cable and the Internet, but it assumes that eventually all televisions will simply connect directly to home networks.—-TV is just a display. Why does it directly need to connect to Internet.

I bet Apple has better chance of bringing telepresence via HDTV to consumers then Cisco. Apple already has most of the technology and brand to make this happen.

good for juniper too….

on a serious note, i think this is an interesting bet, if it takes off there is upside, if it does not it will at least force the hand of others to adopt IP quickly… btw, what is the feeling out there regarding delivering IP in the living room… wifi the best option??

Cisco should be prepared to invest many millions on educating, supporting, training and marketing through traditional retail channels. This is a new skill set for Cisco and they may not be prepared or desire to take on that challenge. They have their VAR channel wired and new products geared for the enterprise flow relatively smoothly through these channels.

For established consumer brands like Sony, Samsung and even HP, they spend millions on end user marketing alone just to build the brand and hope for the ripple effect onto their retail channel partners. Additionally, they pump millions more to retail to support efforts. While those funds from these large CE brands has dwindled over the years it is still an essential ingredient for launching new CE products.

I don’t doubt that Cisco is doing its homework and acquiring or reassigning talent to address these issues, but I don’t think they fully understand what they are getting themselves into with regards to the retail channel – in all its forms.

I feel it is a bit early for a player like Cisco to commit on home networking. We are still testing with different sets of standards – WiFi, bluetooth, MOCA, etc. Right now we have not set the mood of the market and investing heavily in this area would be too risky, particulary right now.

However, with such a player’s entry, may be the things would settle down.

I have diligently followed the consumer initiatives from Cisco – disappointing, since I really felt they would pull it off. The chain gang running their consumer business at Cisco has been rambling endlessly about the “home network” with the not-so-prophetic tones of a mad scientist who got a weekend pass at a mental institution.

Cisco’s problem is “enterprise product managers tasked with selling to the consumer market”. They are now headed into the 2nd showing at CES since they announced their strategic vision for consumer products.

A new PR firm and giving out WSJ interviews may have worked when they launched a new router – but does not cut it in the brutal consumer market.

They need a change of hands on deck with laser focus (a Steve Jobs pedigree crew). It is puzzling Chambers does not see this obvious problem – they need to bring in outside talent – consumer oriented Sherpas (using your Mt. Everest reference) if they are going to be a contender in the consumer business.

It is as you put it well – “a misguided foray” – and only the Cisco Board Room can remedy this current state. Time will tell if they have learned from their recent missteps – but, I would not place anymore bets on the Cisco Kid winning in the consumer business.

The jist was that talking about Linksys whenever Cisco + Consumer are mentioned is a bit of a cop-out. Scientific Atlanta likely has more to do with their consumer plan, which plays to their strengths. They know how to sell to Service Providers and since set-top boxes are consumer devices we get from our Service Providers, working them as a channel is a consumer strategy that Cisco can handle easily. MOTO’s DCTs and PVRs are atrocious and this leaves the Set Top Box market wide open.

I very nearly joined the first Consumer LOB @ Cisco in 1998 — they revealed themselves at CES in 1999, headed up by Robba Benjamin. Their mandate was to drive enabling technologies from the network core leveraging partnerships with consumer tech companies to do it. This strategy rarely works … enabling technologies are driven by edge devices and software, and systems in the cloud must adapt to support them — not the other way round. The upshot was that lots of brilliant ideas were germinated within these partnerships but, without consumer adoption or a desireable product to tie them to, never really hatched.

With the SA acquisition Cisco has signaled that they really have figured it out.