Motorola Inc. purchased Texas-based Wireless Valley Communications, a privately held company that creates software for designing and managing wireless networks including cellular, RFID, Wi-Fi, WiMAX and mesh.
Motorola purchased the software maker for an undisclosed amount and said it plans to retain all 24 of its employees, including James Welch, the company’s president and chief executive. Motorola confirmed that Welch will lead the Motorola RF Design and Management Software Solutions group, which is housed in the company’s Government and Enterprise Mobility Solutions division. Juergen Stark, corporate vice president and general manager, heads the division.
In an e-mail, Motorola explained that its acquisition is a nod to the proliferation and convergence of diverse wireless networks. The company said network operators and enterprises will place greater emphasis on wireless network design, deployment and management issues.
Motorola said it plans to leverage Wireless Valley’s products across all of its business divisions.
Meanwhile, in other acquisition news, Nortel Networks Ltd. announced plans to purchase networking company Tasman Networks for $99.5 million in cash.
Nortel said San Jose, Calif.-based Tasman provides wide-area Internet Protocol routers as part of its end-to-end converged enterprise networks solution.
“With the acquisition of Tasman Networks, Nortel will strengthen its position as an innovator in providing resilient end-to-end converged, secure IP telephony and multimedia networks,” said Steve Slattery, president of Enterprise Solutions and Packet Networks at Nortel. “We anticipate that the Tasman products will complement our enterprise infrastructure solutions and further our ability to provide seamless, feature-rich networks that support critical real-time applications-including voice, video and streaming multimedia applications.”
Nortel said it anticipates closing the deal in early 2006. RCR
