Article at a glance:

Home is where the network is

Futurists and technophiles have long been telling the world that the Internet would transform homes into information-rich hubs of activity. So far, little has come to pass. Yet home networking is far from dead. In the past three years, the underlying technology has been passing through its own quiet revolution, and big companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, and Ericsson have been developing the technology and testing it with consumers. Home networking is making its way off the pages of science magazines and into millions of US homes.

The take-away

This article rates the companies that stand to gain as toasters learn to talk and examines the strategies those companies can use to profit from home networking.