Cisco's Major Acquisitions

NDS
When: March 2012

Cisco Systems made its first major acquisition in over two years with a deal to buy NDS, which develops pay TV software, for $5 billion,
NDS as a maker of “video software and content security solutions,” NDS describes itself on its Web site as a company
that allows pay television companies to deliver all kinds of content to all kinds of devices.
 Cisco very likely plans to have NDS make more software for mobile devices, particularly tablets,
 as well as for business-friendly features, like distance learning and video conferencing.
In either case, the aim is to help phone and cable companies store and deliver more of their
content through huge data centers, where it can be fetched and shown more easily.

Sheer Networks
When: July 2005

Sheer Networks was in Cisco's backyard in San Jose, Calif.,
 and made network and service management products.
Its technologies helped Cisco further develop its own management product portfolio,
 especially for service provider businesses that rely on big operations and billing systems.

Scientific-Atlanta
When: November 2005

Scientific-Atlanta was Cisco's largest-ever acquisition by transaction amount, in this case $6.9 billion.
 It constituted a major video-networking play for Cisco, one that helped expand its horizons toward video
and other content over the Internet, as well as giving Cisco its first major foothold in consumer
electronics and further its reach into home-integration networking.

SyPixx Networks

When: March 2006

SyPixx Networks was a surveillance company specializing in H.264-standard video-camera encoders and decoders,
 transmission equipment, storage, recording and fiber-optic equipment for IP-based video monitoring.
For Cisco, it meant advancing the networking giant's physical security-monitoring systems and related product lines.

Arroyo Video Solutions
When: August 2006

Primarily an entertainment-industry-focused vendor, Arroyo Video Solutions provided on-demand television,
video and other consumer services, and Cisco proceeded to integrate Arroyo's
platform into its Cisco IP-NGN (Next Generation Network) framework.

IronPort Systems

When: January 2007

IronPort's game was Internet threat protection in flagship products such as IronPort AntiSpam and SenderBase e-mail protection.
 The company later added SpamCop to its product arsenal -- a security play for Cisco.

Reactivity
When: February 2007

Cisco snapped up XML gateway and Web services company Reactivity, whose employees and operations were folded into
 Cisco's Data Center Switching and Security Technology Group. The move furthered an agenda by Cisco to create and
offer application-aware networks to support key technologies like service-oriented architectures (SOAs).

WebEx
When: March 2007

WebEx's suite of on-demand collaboration, Web-conferencing and videoconferencing applications include Meeting Center,
WebEx Connect and WebEx WebOffice. Founded as a start-up in 1995, WebEx applications have since become key pieces of
Cisco's collaboration portfolio.

Navini Networks
When: October 2007

Cisco picked up mobile WiMax specialist Navini Networks in 2007 for about $330 million in cash to extend Cisco's Wi-Fi
and Wi-Fi mesh portfolios. Navini's Ripwave MX product line at the time included modems, antenna arrays, base stations
and element management systems.

Pure Digital
When: March 2009

Principally a consumer product play for Cisco, Pure Digital is the maker of Flip Video, a simple camcorder whose variations
include Flip Ultra, Flip Ultra HD, Flip Video Mino and Flip Video Mino HD.

Tandberg
When: October 2009

Tandberg makes a range of videoconferencing hardware and software products, and their lower-end devices are favored by SMB
customers and don't require the type of full-scale, massive conference room deployments as does, say, TelePrescence.
The Tandberg deal is expected to broaden Cisco's collaboration portfolio to reach smaller businesses.