VanVillain,
Companies as cash rich as Cisco sometimes opt to buy companies, retain the best people from each company, and through them into another division of themselves. So since CISCO appears to be assembling a supply chain or tearing apart competition on who might supply them from a widget point-of-view, then they get control of a new market (or it is a lot easier to start off with more control within a market). An indirect benefit by such consolidations at the component (widget level), they remove possible competitors of Poet if they feel that what Poet has outclasses what those companies like Luxtera, Lightwave, Ocore Optics. From those companies they cherry-pick key people and/or certain components and gear it towards Poet's OI. Let's just hope that through all of this that they value Poet the most.
Monolithic