p2p news / p2pnet: Companies such as Sony and Samsung will soon be facing a dangerous new rival.

Networking equipment giant Cisco says it’s planning to move into mainstream consumer electronics to make radios, stereos, phones and home theatre equipment, says the Financial Times.

Changing requirements from consumers for devices that can link to the internet are offering Cisco, "an opportunity to enter a new market," the story has Charles Giancarlo, chief development officer at Cisco and head of the company’s Linksys home networking division, saying.

"Consumer electronics companies have been able to compete on a stand-alone device, but the dynamics of the market are changing, " he told the FT. "The Internet and new networking requirements are enough of a disruptor for us to enter a new market."

What might the new range of Cisco products look like? ZDNet’s Russell Shaw has three ideas:

Consumer-grade VoIP phones, likely sold in partnership with IM-grown-up VoIP service offerings looking to extend their functionality beyond softphone-and-earpiece. It might even be a scaled-down version of the Cisco IP Phone 7985G, which in its current incarnation, looks like this:

Radios that will be able to access Web-based streaming media content and then play that content over home entertainment speakers;

Networkable projection screens that could distribute digital video content throughout the home.

Also See:
Financial Times – Cisco lays plans to expand into home electronics, January 16, 2006
ZDNet – My three suggestions for Cisco’s consumer electronics plans, January 16, 2006

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 7:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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