Cisco Acquiring BroadSoft for $1.9 Billion
Cisco made a major move to expand its collaboration footprint within small and medium businesses worldwide on Monday with the announcement of its intent to acquire cloud-calling and contact center solution vendor BroadSoft for $1.9 billion.
"Following the close of the acquisition, Cisco and BroadSoft will provide a comprehensive SaaS portfolio of cloud based unified communications, collaboration, and contact center software solutions and services for customers of all sizes," said Rob Salvagno, vice president of corporate business development for Cisco, in a blog post about the deal.
BroadSoft is a publicly held company based in Gaithersburg, Md., and the agreement calls for Cisco to pay $55 per share in cash. The board of directors of each company has approved the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.
Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Applications Business Group, emphasized the way the deal expands the types of customers Cisco can now reach. "We believe that our combined offers, from Cisco's collaboration technology for enterprises to BroadSoft's suite for small and medium businesses delivered through Service Providers will give customers more choice and flexibility," Trollope said in a statement.
BroadSoft executives played up the potential for Cisco's collaboration tools and services to improve the performance and capabilities of BroadSoft's hosted solutions.
According to the companies, BroadSoft partners with 450 telecom carriers in 80 countries, reaching more than 19 million business subscribers.
Once the deal closes, the BroadSoft employees and operations will be part of the Cisco Unified Communications Technology Group run by Vice President and General Manager Tom Puorro. That group is part of Trollope's organization within San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 23, 2017