Bundling Umi with broadband Internet access and other services may be the best way to sell the systems to consumers, Parks Associates analyst Kurt Scherf said. A carrier or cable operator that was already selling several services to a household might be able to throw Umi in for a fairly small incremental cost, Scherf said. Consumers might be more interested in that type of offering, he said.

"Throwing a large upfront price point at them, plus a large monthly subscription, was just not the way that you were going to encourage uptake of this," he said. Cisco would prefer to go through service providers anyway, Scherf said. "They want to feed the service providers the solutions and allow the companies that have the most direct contact with the customers [to] be able to successfully sell those," he said.

"I'm not convinced that B-to-C is the way this is going to work," Scherf said.

From article, "Cisco seeks a new angle for UMI" by Stephen Lawson
 

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