Cisco showcasing its consumer side

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For much of its history, Cisco Systems has been the quiet force behind many of the consumer electronics we enjoy. Now, the world's leader in networking equipment is shedding its image as a background player and trying to push its brand to center stage.It's no surprise, then, that the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week is turning into an important showcase for the new, consumer-minded Cisco.It will be showing off Cisco-branded set-top boxes, which used to be labeled under the name Scientific-Atlanta, which Cisco bought in 2005. Cisco's name also will be more prominent on Linksys routers and home media extenders. Cisco bought Linksys in 2003 and plans to turn Linksys into a product name over the next two years while Cisco becomes the prominent brand. Much of what the company will be featuring is the ability to find and access Internet content, namely video, and interact with it. Cisco is pushing an initiative called visual networking, which refers to people being able to find and share video with their social network. Linksys has new extenders that allow consumers to receive video through the PC and push it to a TV through a Cisco set-top box. Through its purchases of Scientific-Atlanta and Linksys, Cisco can not only route the Internet traffic through the Internet, it can also claim to do the same through a personal home network, bringing it in close contact with users. It all ties into Cisco's grander vision to shape the consumer experience. In the past year, Cisco has been showing off advertisements touting the "Human Network," Cisco's take on extending networking into people's lives. "In the past, it's been about mostly disconnected devices," said Ken Wirt, vice president of consumer marketing for Cisco. "But to meet consumers' needs in this visual networking world, the devices have to be connected, and you need a system that takes content through the service provider network into the home network and onto the device. If you don't have that entire system optimized, people will have a bad experience."Wirt's hiring several months ago also signals a shift for Cisco, which has never had a head of consumer marketing. Cisco's bread and butter will remain routers and switches, the infrastructure for the Internet. But the forays into consumer electronics mark a new role for the company.The company has more consumer-facing products now that bring video front and center to users. Cisco's Telepresence high-definition teleconferencing equipment is slowly changing the way executives interact. Its purchase of WebEx last year also gives it a toehold in the growing collaboration market. While both are primarily used for business, it shows the way Cisco is extending its reach from inside the network into people's lives.Tim Bajarin, analyst with Creative Strategies, said it's natural for Cisco to move from behind the scenes to center stage."In general, Cisco is creating the equivalent of a digital ecosystem," Bajarin said. "They acknowledge their core business is back-end plumbing, but in the end they need to fill out their entire line to include customer-facing technology as well." Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research, said Cisco shouldn't spend too much time leveraging Scientific-Atlanta and Linksys to build up its name. He said the better route for Cisco is to hammer home its part in connecting devices and bringing new experiences to people."Cisco is not a recognized consumer brand; no one will confuse them with Sony or Apple. But their strength is how they make networking work," Golvin said. Focusing on that, he said, "allows Cisco to extend its brand across not only devices but reinforces that they are the brand behind these new connected devices." E-mail Ryan Kim at rkim(at)sfchronicle.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)