Buying Spree: Cisco's Latest Revs Up Consumer Product Agenda

Based in San Francisco, Moto advises companies ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500-level enterprises and, according to Cisco, previously worked on development of the Flip video camera, which Cisco acquired when it bought Pure Digital in March 2009.

For Cisco, the acquisition builds upon several key developments in Cisco's consumer portfolio, which include the Pure Digital acquisition, the rebranding of the Linksys line to designate Linksys as consumer- and home-grade networking gear, and the March release of Valet, a new line of "simple design" home routers and networking software.

Cisco has said it learned much from the Flip team about designing simpler, easy-to-use products and those lessons would guide its consumer product strategy going forward. The Moto acquisition will advance that agenda, Cisco said Tuesday.

"Consumers have embraced our Flip Video, Valet and Linksys product lines because they deliver on the promise of making video and home networking simple, affordable and fun," said Jonathan Kaplan, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Consumer Products group, in a statement. "Moto's design and engineering teams have deep consumer expertise that will accelerate our ability to continue to deliver great products and expand Cisco's consumer business."

Moto was founded in 1991 and lists product innovation, industrial design, functional product prototyping, software/firmware development and manufacturing sourcing/management among its key services. It also develops specialty applications for mobile devices and other media.

Some of its more recent work includes a test of touch-screen technology , comparing Google's Nexus One, Motorola's Droid and Apple's iPhone.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cisco said it expects the deal to close in its fiscal fourth quarter and when completed, Moto's employees will become part of Kaplan's group within Cisco.

The deal continues a series of recent acquisitions by Cisco that in the past year have included not only Pure Digital but also videoconferencing titan Tandberg, mobile infrastructure specialist Starent Networks, and the set-top box business of China-bassed DVN Holdings. Acquisitions have long been a focus for Cisco and some of its biggest acquisitions of the past decade have also been consumer-product-related.