Dipping into its coffers again to bolster its technology, network equipment
giant Cisco will pay $9 million for full control of
Parc Technologies.
Cisco already owned a 10 percent stake in the privately-held London company, having contributed to its $23 million second-round of financing along with
NTT Corp. and Credit Suisse First Boston.
Parc’s Route Server algorithms were devised to help service providers meet
service level agreements (SLAs) while improving network utilization and
reducing capital expenditure.
Initially, Parc’s technology will be used by Cisco in its Multiprotocol
Label Switching
of its IP
The Parc sale is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal
2005. When it does, a dozen of the 20 Parc employees, including CEO Gideon
Agar, will join Cisco, according to Cisco spokeswoman Elizabeth McNichols.
They will report to Cliff Meltzer, senior vice president of Cisco’s network
management technology group.
The Parc purchase is the latest in a string of pickups. The company can
certainly afford it. At the end of its most recent quarter, the company had
approximately $19 billion in cash and marketable investments on its books.
Last month, Cisco paid $89
million for the assets of core router maker Procket Networks.
That was closely followed by an $82 million
deal for the 83 percent of Actona Technologies that it doesn’t already
own. Privately held Actona makes wide area network (define) file services
software to help large companies store and manage data at far-off locations.