Cisco to Acquire Acano for Video Bridging

Cisco agreed to acquire Acano Limited, a start-up developing collaboration infrastructure and conferencing software, for $700 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives for Acano employees who join Cisco.

Acano, which is based in London, offers gateways and video and audio bridging technology.  The products allow customers to connect video systems from multiple vendors across both cloud and hybrid environments. Acano has focused on developing products that connect a wide variety of endpoints and systems from all the major collaboration vendors, includes enhanced support for Microsoft’s proprietary protocols and mobile browsers through WebRTC support.

Cisco said the Acano acquisition will accelerate its collaboration strategy to deliver video everywhere 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, 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.

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1729902