Cisco closes Scientific-Atlanta buy

Cisco Systems announced Monday that it has completed its $6.9 billion acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta, a maker of cable set-top boxes. Cisco had announced its intention to buy the company back in November. Products from the acquisition will become part of Cisco's Routing and Service Provider Technology Group led by Senior Vice President Mike Volpi.

The acquisition extends Cisco's presence in the home networking market and firmly plants the company in the video market. Cisco hopes that the Scientific-Atlanta gear will help it provide cable operators and phone companies entering the TV market an end-to-end solution for delivering video service. Scientific-Atlanta will also help Cisco enter the consumer electronics business. Scientific-Atlanta is the No. 2 supplier of set-top boxes to the cable industry in the United States, but has little presence outside the U.S. market. Now that the acquisition has closed, Cisco will try to expand its presence in Europe and Asia, executives have said.