Part of cloud investment strategy for enterprise digitization
Following industry rumblings, Cisco this morning discussed its decision to acquire BroadSoft for $1.9 billion. According to a company announcement, benefits will be the “acceleration of the pace of innovation across Cisco’s collaboration portfolio, the delivery of next generation collaboration capabilities for customers, and the acceleration of the growth of Cisco’s cloud collaboration portfolio as a result of the acquisition, and the expected completion of the acquisition.”
Rown Trollope, Cisco SVP and GM, Application Group, said on a call with investors the acquisition is “aligned very nicely with our cloud investment strategy. Cisco is dedicated to helping our customers digitize their business and we believe collaboration technology is one of the crucial steps necessary to achieve that transition. we’ve seen firsthand how the agile workforce of today is transforming how work gets done, whether that’s virtually while on the move or in their physical work environments.”
He continued: “Many of our customers are transitioning various operations to the cloud and demanding deployment flexibility across on-premises and in the cloud.” BroadSoft’s cloud voice and contract center solutions will be integrated with Cisco’s meetings hardware and service portfolio to better address a “multi-billion-dollar, fas-growing market.”
Michael Tessler, BroadSoft CEO, said he’s “extremely excited” to combine BroadSoft’s apps and services with the networking gear company’s global footprint to expand the product’s reach.
Cisco is paying $55 per share in cash for an aggregate purchase price of $1.9 billion. The acquisition is subject to a required regulatory review and closing requirements with finalization of the deal expected in early 2018. BroadSoft’s 1,700 employees will be integrated into Cisco’s unified communications business.
