Only weeks after Cisco aquired Danish technology company Kiss it has emerged that there’s more behind Cisco Systems’ acquisition of the company than just a way to give its Linksys division a broader portfolio of home networking gear.

 The new products could help resellers and digital integrators tap the revenue stream of the growing market for capturing, viewing and listening to movies, music and voice content beamed into homes and small medium businesses.

The US$61 million purchase will also see the foundation of a new home integrator channel by Linksys. Nigel Williams, Linksys’ newly appointed vice president of service provider and channel operations claims that Linksys will focus on four new channel programs: one designed for home technology integrators, a service provider channel program, a distribution-oriented program aimed at the small business market and a consumer products channel program.

Graham Reardon Regional Manager for Linksys in Australia has just returned from the US. He said “We are pushing hard to get these products and programs for Australia. The market is mature enough for us to role these programs out similar to what they are doing in the USA.

Because of Linksys’ emphasis on home networking technology, relationships with service providers that pipe content, ranging from VoIP to music and video, will be central to practically all of Linksys’ channels, Williams says. About 80 percent of Linksys’ sales are related to the home market, with the balance flowing into SOHO environments, he says. To help compile details for its new channel programs, Linksys is revamping its business intelligence system to gain a better understanding of its integrator partners serving the markets.

Meanwhile, Linksys plans to add many new reseller partners to tackle market opportunities in the home, SOHO and small business segments. Williams says he will improve communications with channel partners. Linksys also plans to add an array of new Web-based partner tools, increase its technical support resources and improve its call center operations to generate more leads, Williams says.

Linksys sees itself at the receiving end of the content feed from service providers and wants VARs to fulfill the services and hardware installation portion of the food chain, Williams says. Nothing recently epitomizes this desired paradigm like Cisco’s purchase in July of KiSS Technologies for $61 million, he says. Once the KiSS deal closes around October, Linksys will have the Denmark-based vendors’ arsenal of networked entertainment devices that span the categories of DVD/media players and recorders, and monitors and plasma displays.

With KiSS, Linksys plans to court service and content providers with the hopes of becoming the kingpin of home entertainment platform management.

“We will be the player to work with the content providers,” says Janie Tsao, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Linksys. “It gives the users a reason to get into broadband connectivity, and the service providers will be very interested in these types of services.”

A CEDIA member said recently of the KISS deal “One of the best things that could come from Linksys improving its channel efforts would be the addition of more product and solution certifications. “I’d like to see you need to be certified to be a Linksys VAR,” Peters says. “Unlike other specialised lines you can buy without really knowing how to make them work, Linksys certifications would lend more credibility. ”

Integrators are right in the middle of the content coming in from the service providers and the hardware from Linksys, says Tsao, who explained the overall result of the KiSS acquisition will “open up that particular VAR channel to go into the home and do the installation and maintenance.”

That paradigm works for Peters, whose company routinely installs top-end home audio, video and computer networks. Because service providers often subcontract interior installation jobs to integrators, Peters says even if service providers directly sell customers KiSS-style boxes from Linksys as part of a content delivery offer, he can still upsell other entertainment and networking products while garnishing those sales with installation services.

The first Linksys-branded products resulting from the KiSS acquisition will likely arrive by January, in time for CES, Tsao says.