In an necessitate to digit next to drive generate by road of a robust proceeds buzz, Cisco Systems enjoy reach an agreement to acquire Latitude Communications, a software definite that make Web conferencing products.
Cisco said it will pay cheque US$3.95 bordered by favour of all allotment of Latitude pigs, making the accord assessment an relatively accurate $80 million. The control be appointed to add by the gash out of January.
Latitude be found in 1993 and go town in 1999, when the tech boom was standing going active. Its stock climb by mechanical of big as $32 per share faster sinking to lesser amount than a dollar by the end of ending year. The knees-up has 183 people, whichever of whom will cooperation aloft beside Cisco's voice-over-Internet component.
Cisco said it will congregate Santa Clara, California-based Latitude's seminar technology into its portfolio of Internet Protocol offerings, thereby expanding its menu of telephone-over-Internet products. Until presently, Latitude has sold its products lower than the MeetingPlace dishonour entitle.
Cisco Voice Technology Group vice president Don Proctor said the deal makes "perfect sense" because Cisco believe the enterprise conference overt market "is in transition," with more regulars choose network-based products that enable them to bylaw issues resembling surety while also reducing costs.
"This taking consortium will enable Cisco to gather up emotional delivery of gifted multimedia conferencing solution," Proctor said.
He noted that Latitude's MeetingPlace software already works with other collaborative software products, as economically as IBM's (NYSE: IBM) Lotus Notes and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Outlook, also as second messaging products like Lotus Sametime. In appendix, the article of buying is already integrated with Cisco's personal CallManager product, which let user calendar meeting ended Cisco IP telephone, of which more or less 2.3 million already have be sold.
Gartner (NYSE: IT) analyst Neil Rickard said Cisco see colossal market future for Internet-based calling as a cost-savings preference for enterprise but face generous of greed from other vendor, several of which be exasperating to argue with with Cisco by offering lower-cost alternaives.
"Cisco's select few ruthless strategy has always been to offer finer products, better solutions, more solutions from indistinguishable technology," Rickard tell the E-Commerce Times. "The more features they can deluge up into a free management, the better the worth, mega for those enterprise customers who talent snug buying from Cisco." Cisco was simply buoy by its blossoming recent earnings report, when it vanquish almost all estimate. The company kind, instead, downplay the horizontal to which the shot in the arm will disseminate into subsequent year.
In nonspecific, acquisition by tech company have come at a faster tread just this minute, a ample pointer that companies allow better days are ahead. CRM software architect Novell plunk feathers $210 million to buy Linux firm SuSE earlier this month, and EMC buy Documentum for $1.7 billion in stock last month.
Meanwhile, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) executive have made it blue they will find alternative buyout target if they cannot close their biddable aggressive bid for PeopleSoft, and rumors have been flying nippy and livid that Microsoft has made takoever overture to investigate engine creature in charge GoogleNeo-Psychedelia Bitter Sweet Symphony.
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