Cisco Systems will acquire the intellectual property, a majority of the engineering team and select assets from privately-held Procket Networks for approximately $89 million in cash. Procket, a start-up based in Milpitas, California, is a developer of concurrent services routers and has expertise in silicon and software development. Upon closing of the deal, Cisco will own Procket's entire intellectual property portfolio. The engineers will become part of Cisco's Routing Technology Group, under senior vice presidents Prem Jain and Mike Volpi.
"The addition of Procket's engineering team to Cisco offers a unique opportunity to accelerate development of silicon and software across Cisco's next generation routing portfolio," said Mike Volpi, senior vice president/general manager, Routing Technology Group, Cisco Systems.
Last month, Cisco Systems unveiled its own, internally developed next generation CRS-1 Carrier Routing System.
Procket developed a line of terabit scalable, core routers featuring new capabilities in system management, network security, and system availability. The Procket platforms are based on a customized chipset that includes a fully programmable 40 Gbps network processor and a Terabit Switch Engine. The scalable chipset is used in platforms that range from 80 Gbps to 960 Gbps. Procket's PRO/8801 router features 80 Gbps of total capacity and can support up to 40 high speed interfaces in a chassis that takes up 1/8 of a rack. The PRO/8812 router features 960 Gbps of total capacity and a forwarding rate of 1.2 billion packets per second. The routers support OC-3c, OC-12c, OC-48c, OC-192c, Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. All Procket routers use common line cards and media adapters. Procket has previously announced deployments or trials with a handful of reasearch organizations and carriers, including Australia's Research and Education Network (AARNet), the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of Oregon, NTTPC Communication and Stealth Communications. http://www.cisco.com
- Procket Networks was founded in March 1999 by Sharad Mehrotra, William Lynch and Tony Li. As of March 2002, Procket Networks had raised $272 million in funding. Major investors included Fidelity, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Redpoint Ventures, and U.S. Venture Partners (USVP).
- In January 2004, Procket named Roland Acra as its new president and CEO. Most recently, Acra served as Senior Vice President and CTO at Cisco Systems, focusing on its Service Provider market.
