Cisco Systems Inc. Tuesday acquired integrated software company GeoTel Communications Corp. for approximately $2 billion in stock.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will exchange 0.5138 shares of Cisco common stock for every outstanding share and option of GeoTel. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 1999.
GeoTel develops, markets and supports enterprise-level customer-interaction software for call center applications including telephone, the Internet, fax, e-mail and other technologies. The acquisition is part of Cisco’s strategy to create an open data and voice software infrastructure for enterprise and service provider customers as well as Cisco partners.
“Today’s announcement is an extension of our commitment to open voice technology,” said Don Listwin, Cisco executive vice president.
GeoTel products will enable a software platform allowing Cisco partners and customers to rapidly innovate and deploy voice applications based on open Internet standards, the firms said. It will also expand current technology to include third-party developers focused on creating open voice applications.