Cisco acquires Pure Networks, home networking software

Cisco Systems has cable set-top boxes and your home along with the routers. Now it wants the software that puts your entire home network together.

Cisco, which is determined to be a big consumer player as well as an enterprise behemoth, on Wednesday that it will buy Pure Networks, a home networking management software company, for $120 million. With the move Cisco is hoping to usher in "home networking 2.0" where homes are multimedia and integrate network devices and applications. Pure coupled with Linksys and Scientific Atlanta give Cisco a big digital living room footprint.

Sound familiar? Cisco is eyeballing the same networked home concept that everyone from Microsoft to Apple is chasing.

In a statement, Cisco said:

The acquisition of Pure Networks provides Cisco with a fully integrated home networking-management solution that will also serve as the foundation for the development of new applications, tools and capabilities for consumers to use in an increasingly "connected life" at home, at work and on the go.

Pure is already a partner of Linksys so the integration should go smoothly.