Cisco acquires Tribe.net

A very odd purchase. Cisco should stick to the old hardware, imho.

News.com: Cisco Systems announced on Monday one of its most unusual deals: it has purchased the technology assets of Tribe.net, a mostly forgotten social-networking site.

It is a curious pairing. Cisco, with 55,000 employees, makes networking equipment for telecommunications providers and other big companies. Tribe.net, run by an eight-employee company called Utah Street Networks, has been trampled by newer social sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.

But along with the recent purchase of a social network design firm, Five Across, the deal will give Cisco the technology to help large corporate clients create services resembling MySpace or YouTube to bring their customers together online. And that ambition highlights a significant shift in the way companies and entrepreneurs are thinking about social networks.