Cisco intends to acquire Acano Limited, a privately held company based in London that provides collaboration infrastructure and conferencing software, according to the company.
- Acano's hardware and software includes gateways and video and audio bridging technology that allows customers to connect video systems from multiple vendors across both cloud and hybrid environments. The acquisition will accelerate Cisco's collaboration strategy to deliver video everywhere, providing the collaboration across every endpoint, every screen, every workspace, and to every user.
"People, companies, and organizations are more geographically dispersed than ever before, and collaboration is essential to helping teams increase productivity and drive growth," said Rob Salvagno, vice president at Cisco Corporate Development. "Acano's innovations make it easier for customers to collaborate when, where and how they want. Together, we will help our customers to extend collaboration to every room, every screen and every user."
The Acano team will join the Cisco Collaboration Technology Group led by Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $700 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives for Acano employees who join Cisco. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal year 2016, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory review.
