Juniper Makes $67.5M VoIP Buy

Network equipment giant Juniper will pay $67.5 million
cash for VoIP specialist Kagoor, the companies said today.

Kagoor’s session border control (SBC) products are used by more than 100
carriers, most of which also use Juniper routers. In addition, Kagoor
has partnerships with other industry leaders, including Lucent, Siemens and
NEC.

SBCs sit at the network edge and ensure the reliable flow of real-time IP
traffic across network boundaries. They enable carrier-to-carrier peering, carrier-to-enterprise service enablement and carrier-to-consumer service enablement.

Although based in San Mateo, Calif., privately held Kagoor has a research
and development facility in Herzelia, Israel. Juniper will use this as a
base for a new Israeli R&D center to tap into engineering talent there.

A Juniper spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

“Network operators worldwide are increasingly looking to
deliver enhanced VoIP and other rich services to their enterprise and
consumer customers, but they need to do this in a secure and assured
fashion,” said Kittu Kolluri, Juniper’s general manager of security products, in a statement. “SBC technology is a key element in delivering these attributes.”

The acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter. Kagoor was
founded in 2000 and generated fewer than $5 million in revenue during 2004,
so the pickup won’t have much impact on Juniper’s finances.

The deal will dilute less than 1 cent per share this year from earnings and
will be accretive in 2006, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper said.

In other sector news today, Nortel said it has won a new
wide-ranging contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). A
spokeswoman for Nortel said the deal was worth $20 million.

The network equipment giant will work with DoD on enhancing its
communications systems, deploying new applications and improving control
and responsiveness during times of crisis.

The project, which involves upgrading hardware and adding new software, will
be accomplished in about one year with help from systems integrators General Dynamics and Computer Sciences Corp.