NetScout buys Network General for $205m
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Give it a wash, good as new NetScout Systems wants to purchase Network General for $205m, the company said today. The takeover will be the third time the once-leading packet monitoring firm has changed hands, 10 years after McAfeee purchased Network General for $1.1bn.â¦
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Ciena has agreed to acquire World Wide Packets in a deal, valued at about $290 million, that will bring together two players in the growing carrier Ethernet market.The vendor of carrier gear will pay about $200 million cash plus 3.4 million shares for privately held World Wide Packets, which makes switches and software for Ethernet services offered by carriers. World Wide Packets, in Spokane Valley, Washington, will be merged into a wholly owned subsidiary of Ciena.Carriers are beginning to build Ethernet networks across metropolitan areas so they can be more flexible in offering different speeds of service and deliver WAN connectivity with the same technology most enterprises use for their LANs. Ethernet, which generally costs less than traditional metropolitan fiber networks, can also be used for wholesale data transport and backhaul of traffic from wireless networks to the Internet.World Wide Packets has more than 100 customers in 25 countries and has shipped more than 70,000 units of its products, according to Ciena. The company offers a common operating system across its products, called LightningEdge Operating System, and network management tools.Also on Tuesday, Ciena said it had won a multiyear contract to supply AT&amp;T with platforms from World Wide Packets.Based on the $26.52 closing price of Ciena&#39;s stock last Friday, the 3.4 million shares are worth about $90 million. Ciena will also assume as much as $15 million of the acquired company&#39;s debt. The acquisition requires regulatory approval and is expected to close in the second quarter of Ciena&#39;s 2008 fiscal year, which will end in April. World Wide Packets will keep operating from its locations in Spokane Valley and San Jose, California. Ciena is based in Linthicum, Maryland.
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Australia&#39;s Computershare Ltd has agreed to buy EquiServe of the United States for $292 million, making it the largest US share registrar and driving its shares up by a third.
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco Systems is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent. Cisco announced Monday it has bought selected assets of Utah Street Networks, a seven-person San Francisco company founded in 2003. It did not acquire Tribe.net, a social-networking site that has been overshadowed by the success of big names such as Friendster, Facebook, and News Corp.'s MySpace. Cisco did not reveal the terms of the deal, which has already been completed, in a statement Monday. With the purchase, Cisco gets a proprietary software infrastructure that Utah Street has used to create and maintain online communities on Tribe.net. The dominant networking vendor will integrate that software into its Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), and certain Utah Street employees will join that team to continue software development, according to Cisco. Cisco started moving into content infrastructure last year with the formation of the CMSG, which made its first acquisition last month when itÂ bought social-networking software company Five Across. On Monday, Cisco announced that acquisition had been completed. The San Jose, California, company sees social networking as a key part of the way media companies and other enterprises will approach their customers. On Tribe.net, users can set up personal profiles, join interest groups, post blog entries and pictures, and review local businesses, among other things. Versions of the site exist for dozens of U.S. cities. Utah Street brings unspecified capabilities to Cisco that Five Across -- and even well-known social networking sites -- don't have, said Eric Chan, strategy and marketing director for CMSG. "This is also a company that has been going through the wars of running a social networking site over the past few years," Chan said. Among other things, that real-world experience taught the company lessons about how people use such a site, he said. Cisco is finished buying social-networking companies, at least for now, Chan said. CMSG's mission extends beyond that technology to a range of other tools for enterprises to make closer connections with their customers, he said. Most enterprises haven't yet started using social-networking technologies, but they could prove great tools for communication even within companies, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. Enterprise IT departments, which typically dictate what tools employees should use to communicate, should instead provide a variety of methods users understand and let them choose, Kerravala said. Cisco can pave the way for that change by combining several such tools in one package for enterprises to deploy. "I think it's very forward-looking by Cisco," Kerravala said. Demand for such consumer-style software will grow as today's young people enter the work force, he said. In fact, Kerravala thinks Cisco should go one step further into the future by buying Second Life creator Linden Research.
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Computer Associates has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Netegrity -- a provider of security software solutions, in an all cash merger valued at approximately $430 million.
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco Systems is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent. Cisco announced Monday it has bought selected assets of Utah Street Networks, a seven-person San Francisco company founded in 2003. It did not acquire Tribe.net, a social-networking site that has been overshadowed by the success of big names such as Friendster, Facebook, and News Corp.'s MySpace. Cisco did not reveal the terms of the deal, which has already been completed, in a statement Monday. With the purchase, Cisco gets a proprietary software infrastructure that Utah Street has used to create and maintain online communities on Tribe.net. The dominant networking vendor will integrate that software into its Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), and certain Utah Street employees will join that team to continue software development, according to Cisco. Cisco started moving into content infrastructure last year with the formation of the CMSG, which made its first acquisition last monthÂ when it bought social-networking software company Five Across. On Monday, Cisco announced that acquisition had been completed. The San Jose, Calif., company sees social networking as a key part of the way media companies and other enterprises will approach their customers. On Tribe.net, users can set up personal profiles, join interest groups, post blog entries and pictures, and review local businesses, among other things. Versions of the site exist for dozens of U.S. cities.
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BT Group will buy California-based Infonet Services Corp for $965 million in cash to expand in the United States and Asia, the UK&#39;s dominant fixed-line company said on Monday.
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A Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group-led consortium bought NTL Inc.&#39;s antenna towers business in the UK for 1.27 billion pounds ($2.47 billion).
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Cisco Systems announced it is acquiring NetSolve, which provides real-time monitoring of the performance of corporate data networks.
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The company on Tuesday announced that it&#39;s acquiring privately held security equipment maker Net6 for $50 million in cash. The acquisition, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2004, will thrust
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Time Warner Inc. said Thursday it agreed to sell AOL France's Internet access business to Neuf Cegetel, a French telecommunications network operator, for about $365 million in cash.
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In the latest of a flurry of deals among internet service providers, UK firm Claranet buys the UK operations of US business Via.Net Works for Â£7.3m.
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BT grows global presence but shares fall as investors doubt former monopoly can play in US market. LONDON  - BT Group PLC will buy Infonet Services Corp.
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NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Shares of DigitalNet Holdings (DNET) soared $6.24, or 26.5 percent to $29.80 in early trading Monday after it agreed to be acquired by UK group BAE Systems for around $600 million, including the assumption of $93.
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BT Group Plc will buy Infonet Services  Corp for $965 million in cash, giving Britain's top fixed-line  telecoms company 1,800 multinational corporate clients and an  expanded presence in the United States and Asia.
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General Electric Co., the world&#39;s biggest non-bank lender, will buy Australian Financial Investments Group for about $300 million to boost its share of that nation&#39;s mortgage market, people familiar with the plan said.
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Time Warner Inc. said Wednesday it agreed to sell AOL France's Internet access business to Neuf Cegetel, a French telecommunications network operator, for about $365 million in cash.