Set-tops will remain core part of Cisco’s business, says Andersen

The set-top will remain key to Cisco Systems’ video portfolio following the acqusition of NDS, according to Jesper Andersen, senior vice-president and general manager, service provider video technology group, Cisco Systems. 

“We are very committed to the set-top business. We are the number one set-top vendor in the world and it continues to be very improtant to our customers,” Andersen told DTVE at Cable Congress last week. He said the business kept growing, even though it was changing.

“There are many customers in the emerging world moving towards an advanced gateway where you can have different slave devices fed from it. In emerging markets there are people still just watching TV and maybe moving into DVR functioanlity. There’s no question we are very committed to it, but there is no question that much of the advanced functionality we are introducing can be done much faster via software and that’s another reason Cisco decided to invest in NDS.”

Andersen said that there would continue to be a need for some kind of hardware hub in the home. Service providers in the TV market had the ability to add to their broadband gateway pipe by adding TV, giving them an advantage. “You need some kind of platform in the home that can be your application paltform from a rendering perspective,” he said.

Watch our interview with Jesper Andersen in its entirety below.