Cisco to Acquire Metreos and Audium for Application Creation/Integration into Service Networks

Cisco Systems agreed to acquire privately-held Metreos Corp of Austin, Texas, and Audium Corp of New York in two separate deals. Both of these companies offer application creation/integration environments which will strengthen Cisco's Service Oriented Network Architecture (SONA). Cisco's recently announced its Unified Communications system, which leverages SONA, enables enterprise customers to integrate their communications systems with their IT infrastructure, thereby creating a single enterprise-wide communications platform.



Metreos is a provider of IP communication application development and management environments. Cisco said the acquisition would help its ecosystem of third party technology partners, systems integrators, value-added resellers, and customers build and deliver applications on Cisco's Unified Communications System.



Cisco will pay approximately $28 million in cash for Metreos. The company was founded in 2001 and has 19 employees.



Audium is a provider of VoiceXML speech self-service application development and management environments. The acquisition will enable enterprises to easily build automated voice response applications that are integrated with not only their converged IP network but also work well within their Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) enabling the use of common services across the network. Leveraging the intelligence of the network, Audium's technology further strengthens Cisco's SONA and provides a platform for enterprises to integrate their business process workflow with their speech self-service applications.



Cisco will pay $19.8 million in cash for Audium, which was founded in 1999 and has 26 employees.



Cisco said that By acquiring Metreos and Audium and their standards-based creation and integration tools, customers and partners will be able to rapidly build customized communications applications that are fully integrated across the enterprise IT infrastructure, enterprise applications, and enterprise contact centers.



"Cisco's Unified Communications system enables businesses to leverage their Cisco networks as a platform for integrating voice, video, data and mobility services," said Don Proctor, senior vice president of Cisco's Voice Technology Group. "Using common SOA standards, such as XML and VXML, these acquisitions will help our customers streamline key business processes by integrating their communications environment with their information systems."http://www.cisco.com