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Meet Cisco, the consumer company

April 24, 2009

"The network is becoming a base to deliver new capabilities to consumers, focused around video," says Ned Hooper, Cisco's senior vice-president for corporate development and consumer business.

Those Scientific-Atlanta boxes could be the key to making this happen. The first, obvious step would be to combine a Flip camera with the set-top box, the cable connection, and the big-screen TV to create a videophone service so simple and compelling that families actually would yearn to use it.

At a minimum, gathering around the TV to talk to grandma is more appealing than scrunching around the family laptop.

Image: The Amphitheatre at the Cisco campus in Bangalore is flanked by two of Cisco office buildings and the skybridge connecting them.