Networking king Cisco has written a cheque for UK outfit Ensoft to add talent and technology to its service provider support.
Ensoft has a £10 million turnover and develops Cisco’s IOS XR features. After the deal, it will become part of the vendor’s Service Provider Networking Group.
Writing in his bog, Rob Salvagno, vice president of corporate business development and head of Cisco’s M&A and venture investment team, said that the purchase fitted in with the ambition to, “simplify service partner networks through automation and programmability”.
“Acquiring the Ensoft team accelerates this strategy and strengthens our commitment to our service provider customers. Cisco has developed the Cisco IOS XR operating system for service provider routing systems, which offers rich IP networking innovation across a variety of devices and form factors from a single code base”, he said.
Cisco will get access to Ensoft’s staff of more than 60 engineers, which Salvagno described as a “strong talent pipeline” and noted that the firm was listed third overall in The Sunday Times 100 best small companies to work for this year.
The firm is expecting the deal to be complete in a few months by the second quarter of its fiscal 2019.
