Cisco Systems agreed to acquire privately-held Orative Corp., a developer of mobile communications solutions, for $31 million in cash. Orative provides an application which will allow Cisco to extend its Unified Communications portfolio to mobile devices such as cell phones and smartphones. Orative was founded in 2002 and has 33 employees based in San Jose, California.
Cisco said Orative's mobile software will extend the communications and collaboration capabilities of the Cisco Unified Communications system to business mobile phone users. With Orative Enterprise Software, mobile phone users can coordinate conversations, collaborate with colleagues, view information on Unity voicemail messages, screen unwanted telephone calls and interruptions, and securely access personal and corporate phone books.
In March 2006, Cisco announced its Unified Communications system based on Cisco's service-oriented network architecture (SONA), which enables businesses of all sizes to integrate their communications systems with their IT infrastructure, thereby creating a single communications platform. http://www.cisco.comhttp://www.orative.com/index.php
- Orative is headed by Paul Fulton, who founded the company during his Executive in Residence tenure at Mayfield. Prior to joining Mayfield, Mr. Fulton was Vice President and General Manager of 3Com's Wireless Division. Previously, Mr. Fulton was co-founder of Netcore Technology and served in key management roles at Compaq and Texas Instruments.
