Cisco is paying $120m for home networking firm Pure Networks, underscoring its desire to build a consumer brand.

Pure makes network management software for home users. Now everyone can be a network manager from their own living room.

Pure's software lets you manage all the devices on your home network, which Cisco imagines will soon include not just computers, printers and routers but also personal video recorders, games machines and TVs.

The software also works remotely - so you could tell your broadband provider that you've bought a new games box and it could deal with linking it to your home network.

Cisco has been banging the drum for the networked home for some time and is moving into set-top boxes, home routers and even an "entertainment operating system".

Pure staff will stay in Seattle and will join Cisco's Linksys division. Cisco's press release is here.

Cisco expects the deal to close, subject to the usual conditions, in the first quarter of 2009. ®

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