Marketing usually trumps technology

About the early (like, soldering-things-together-in-their-living-room early) history of Cisco, the internet hardware and software company. Much of the product was software based, and with early networking no one even knew exactly why they needed such stuff.

"Cisco cleverly sold software that plugged into the wall, had a fan and got warm,'' Gorin said. "People had a long history of buying things that plugged into the wall, made noises and got warm.''

Interesting history in general. From here: http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/cisco.html