Cisco Systems Inc. agreed to buy Scientific-Atlanta Inc. for $6.9 billion, adding the second-largest U.S. maker of set-top boxes for cable television and tapping into the growing market for Internet TV.Cisco, based in San Jose, California, will pay $43 a share, the companies said today in a Business Wire statement. The offer is 3.7 percent higher than Lawrenceville, Georgia-based Scientific- Atlanta’s closing price yesterday.
This would seem to give Cisco a leg-up on the race to grab the sofa surfer market. S-A boxes currently provide hi-def, DVR, and a host of other features. DVD burners are coming. The boxes are networkable and Cisco has Linksys. It isn’t too much of a leap to imagine a S-A box talking to a Linksys router and beaming content all over the house as well as receiving downloads of music, movies, and photos. It beats adding a MSFT media PC to my home theater rig.
technorati tags: cisco, scientific-atlanta, linksys, hi-def, DVR, wireless