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Meet Cisco, the consumer company

Text: Stephen H Wildstrom, BusinessWeek.com

April 24, 2009

Over the past few years, an assortment of technology and consumer electronics companies, from Microsoft to Sony to Hewlett-Packard to Apple, have made stabs at becoming the dominant player in "convergence."

The term refers to the merging of computers, entertainment, and the Internet -- and all the contenders have found it a tough nut to crack. Now Cisco Systems, which made its reputation and fortune building industrial-strength networking gear, is stepping up its efforts to dominate the connected home of the future.

Cisco brings some unique advantages but faces an array of obstacles. The company has built a growing corporate business around telepresence -- high-definition videoconferencing -- that it believes consumers will find alluring. And Cisco has an important beachhead in the home.

Illustration: Peter Arkle, BusinessWeek