I'm still catching up with CES news (the slowness of the net connection here is very off-putting). I stumbled upon Engadget's coverage of Cisco's keynote at CES, and it hits the nail on the head in many respects.

The main focus of the keynote is 'human networks', or specifically, consumer 'human networks'. Cisco has in the past mainly been a corporate equipment supplier, but it has recently been pushing strongly into the consumer market with Linksys, its consumer brand.

The demo given on stage sounds very impressive (well worth the read, and if there's youtube footage, even better I reckon), from the text anyway. The ability to have your content follow you around has been a goal for many tech companies for a while, and only now is place-shifting getting some attention. Also, the simplicity of the whole system is great too - wireless networks are still too hard to setup for most people (I know because I often get called round to do the setup). Of course this is only a demo, and in reality many more factors come into play, but as a vision its awesome.

One of the most interesting points in the whole presentation is this from engadget's report:

The future will not be silo'd. We need to knock down silos and barriers. End users don't care; they just want their devices to talk to each other. And they want it simple.

and

Innovation is not about doing it all yourself; it's about partering (sic) and acquiring. Cisco is committed to collaborating.

This is what's needed across the IT industry, but the problem with standards is that it often removes uniqueness from manufacturer's products, i.e. if a certain feature requires a change in the standard, then that change will be available to all manufacturers. The result is that manufacturers have to compete on design, usability, implementation and innovation within the constraints of the standard. For consumers this is great; but these factors are probably the more difficult ones for manufacturers. After all, there's a reason why there are people with the title 'user experience specialist' and companies have 'design teams' - most developers can't do either. In some respects, it has to do with the developer's mindset - everything is about implementing the idea as quickly as possible, and as long as it works, its ticked off the list and the next thing is worked on. Design and usability factors are often an afterthought, or when customers aren't discovering your changes at all or worse, begin complaining about the changes and the issues they're causing.

Given Cisco's past achievements, many say that Cisco can pull this off, but with the various technologies out there already, and the fact that after the DVD+R vs. DVD-R battle we're now having a blu-ray vs. HD DVD battle doesn't offer much hope. With Intel's push into the home entertainment market with VIIV already well underway, Cisco would do well to collaborate with them to avoid confusing consumers. The uPnP standard also offers a good starting point too. But ultimately, they'd need to collaborate with Microsoft, Apple, content providers, and the open-source community (which is probably the hardest to appease), among others to make this a reality.

Nevertheless, the fact that Cisco is pushing for something this big is a great thing; especially as heavyweights like Apple and Microsoft are not exactly the open standard type, though Microsoft seems to be doing a better job at interoperability than Apple, who thrive on their proprietary-ness but use it to make very nice products, trapping consumers in (which is great for Apple as a company).

P.S. The Apple vs. Cisco 'iPhone' trademark fight has begun. The fact that Cisco is asking for a relationship rather than cash shows their commitment to their vision - that's not to say that maybe that's all just PR, given that Apple's remained quiet as usual so no one's rebutting them. Maybe Apple's strategy in this battle is to force a financial settlement in the courts so they can avoid this 'relationship' - I don't think them working with Cisco is high on their wish list. Let the fight begin!