Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) on Thursday dipped into its M&A purse again to acquire privately-held Cariden Technologies, a supplier of network planning, design and traffic management solutions targeting the service provider industry.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $141 million in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all of Cariden's shares.
What Cisco gets out of the deal is enhanced management capabilities for IP/MPLS and optical networks.
Cisco plans to integrate Cariden's multilayer modeling and optimization tools for optical transport and IP/MPLS networks into its Service Provider Networking Group.
The San Jose, Calif. vendor said that Cariden's products and technology will also serve two other purposes. It will advance Cisco's nLight technology for the convergence of IP and optical technology, and support the company's Open Network Environment (ONE) strategy by providing sophisticated wide area networking (WAN) orchestration capabilities. Service providers can use these capabilities to improve "the programmability of their networks and the utilization of existing network assets across the IP and optical transport layers."
Surya Panditi, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco's Service Provider Networking Group, said in a release that the "acquisition signals the next phase in Cisco's packet and optical convergence strategy and further strengthens our ability to lead this market transition in networking."
After meeting standard closing conditions, the Cariden purchase is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2013. Also, all of Cariden employees will be integrated into Cisco's Service Provider Networking Group, reporting to Shailesh Shukla, vice president and general manager of the company's Software and Applications Group.
Purchasing network management companies has become a growing priority for Cisco. Besides Cariden, Cisco purchased made three key acquisitions in this segment including: TR-69 software vendor ClearAccess to target residential broadband opportunities; software and conditional access provider NDS; and the AXIOSS division from COMPTEL.
For more:
- see the release
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