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Business, Mergers & Acquisitions, WiMAX, Global: Cisco has just announced its agreement to acquire Navini Networks. As a result, Cisco will be able to extend its Cisco IP Next Generation Network vision of both delivering wireless broadband services and of increasing Internet access in emerging markets.
 The company Cisco is acquiring is a Texas-based player in the Mobile WiMAX 802.16e-2005 broadband wireless industry. Navini Networks, for example, describes itself as a "pioneer" in the integration of "Smart Beamforming" technologies with Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) antennas, a combination that improves the performance and range for WiMAX services and lowers the overall deployment and operational costs for service providers.
Navini's WiMAX products are expected to extend Cisco's market-leading WiFi and WiFi-Mesh portfolios, allowing Cisco to uniquely address the rapidly growing markets for broadband wireless services. The acquisition of Navini will also help extend and enhance Cisco's IP Next Generation Network (IP NGN) vision to enable service providers to deliver any service to any device over any network - a vision that Cisco calls the Connected Life. The addition of broadband wireless products based upon WiMAX will complement existing Cisco products and solutions to enable service providers to deliver premium end-to-end Connected Experiences and hasten their transition to becoming Experience Providers. Cisco also expects that its broadband wireless solution portfolio, that now includes WiMAX products, will play a key role in Cisco's Country Transformation and "Digital Inclusion" initiatives to drive broadband penetration to consumers and business in emerging countries.
"Emerging country service providers are in expansion mode, building out broadband wireless networks, and are concerned about deployment costs and the availability of skilled resources," said Brett Galloway, Vice-President and General Manager of the Wireless Networking Business Unit, Cisco. "Around the world broadband wireless networks based upon WiMAX have the potential to add millions of new Internet users who cannot be reached economically using copper or fibre infrastructures. Additionally, WiMAX networks will help drive the transition to open IP-based broadband wireless architectures and accelerate the rollout of new applications and services."
Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately US$330 million in cash and assumed options. The Navini acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco's 2008 fiscal year. On acquisition, Cisco plans to integrate Navini into its Wireless Networking Business Unit under the Ethernet and Wireless Technology Group. This will be acquisition No 124 for Cisco.
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Date: 2 - 5 September 2008