Cisco to Buy Collaboration Company Acano for $700 Million

Cisco Systems Inc. said Friday it agreed to buy privately held conferencing software company Acano Ltd. for $700 million, a move by the network giant to grow its collaboration business.

The cash deal is expected to be completed in Cisco's quarter ending April 30.

Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., sells routing and switching systems that companies use to handle Internet traffic and move information within corporate data centers. But the company has also been moving to grow other businesses, including collaboration and security software.

Acano's hardware and software includes gateways and video, and audio-bridging technology that allows users to connect video systems. According to Cisco, less than 10% of world-wide conference rooms are connected via video and there is a market shift under way as customers want the ability to easily connect from anywhere.

Cisco said its collaboration business is seeing the impact of that trend, with 17% growth in the segment in the latest quarter from a year earlier. The company's collaboration segment offers voice, video, data and mobile applications on fixed and mobile networks.

In its most recent business year, collaboration made up 11% of total revenue, behind switching and routing.

The Acano deal comes amid a string of acquisitions by Cisco to beef up its security business. Last month, the company struck a deal to buy Lancope Inc. for about $453 million, on the heels of a deal in June to buy OpenDNS, which maintains a network of domain-name servers to help route Web traffic and can use that technology to help block attacks carried out over the Internet. In its biggest deal in the space, Cisco in 2013 acquired cybersecurity firm Sourcefire for $2.7 billion.

Write to Lisa Beilfuss at [e-mail]

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November 20, 2015 09:05 ET (14:05 GMT)

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