Spirent to Acquire Fanfare for Test Automation

Spirent Communications agreed to acquire The Fanfare Group, which offers test automation solutions, for $15 million in cash.


Fanfare, which is based in Mountain View, California, provides an iTest test automation product, which is used by service providers (SPs), network equipment manufacturers (NEMs), and enterprises to accelerate the testing of new systems and services. Fanfare's iTest provides a unified approach for rapidly developing, automating, and maintaining test cases.


Spirent and Fanfare are both founding members of the Network Test Automation Forum (NTAF) and both companies have made major contributions to the development of industry standards that promote interoperability of commercial testing tools and test infrastructure. Spirent plans to continue its support for standardization through NTAF, and the acquisition of Fanfare will accelerate its ability to bring to market commercial implementations of new standards as they emerge.


"Addressing a clear customer need to simplify testing and increase productivity is an important part of our vision. It has been the driver for our successful partnership with Fanfare over the past two years," said Bill Burns, CEO of Spirent. "Bringing Fanfare's software expertise and its innovative iTest technology to Spirent will enable us to realise that vision much more quickly, including an on-going commitment to an open, standards-based approach."


"Over the past few years we've built an extremely successful partnership with Spirent," said Tom Ryan, CEO of Fanfare. "This acquisition is a logical way to deliver even more value to customers, through Spirent's scale and global reach and through seamless integration with test solutions, including market-leading solutions from Spirent."http://