[ww520]

That's Cisco's R&D model. Buy smaller companies with interesting tech and see if their products stick. If they do, great. If not, spit them out via sale or shut them down.

[digi_owl]

Hardly unique to Cisco. Every major tech company, yes even Apple, operate they try to sustain their existence beyond their initial success.

[sushid]

The parent commenter is saying that Cisco essentially doesn't do much outside of the acquisition.

Companies like Google or Apple do a lot of work to integrate the existing software or hardware into their lineup (e.g. Google Voice, Google Doc, Siri, Siri music search)