However, money managers rotated into big-name consumer-oriented companies with consistent earnings.

A purchase of Scientific-Atlanta would be a coming-out party of sorts for Cisco as a more consumer-oriented company.

Some portfolio managers think that the attention of corporate and financial buyers will continue to be on consumer-oriented companies with strong cash flow from existing products.

A. If you look at the failure rates of innovation at consumer-oriented companies, you see how hard it is to come up with genuinely new ideas.

The demand is coming from basic consumer-oriented companies like food producers and other packaged-goods companies as well as service organizations, he said.

Analysts continue to lower their estimates for consumer-oriented companies such as food and beverage producers and retailers.

Information technology stocks rose 15.2 percent, but within high tech, the shares of consumer-oriented companies fared much better than those that sell capital equipment to businesses.

Such an emphasis on foreign markets is likely to become a common strategy at consumer-oriented companies trying to build their businesses, Ms. Cowperthwaite predicted.

With the acquisition of Tribe.net, it is also trying to further its quest to become a consumer-oriented company.

Starting in 2001, they focused on cyclical, economically sensitive consumer-oriented companies.