posted by: Mark Cortner
Cisco announced today a definitive agreement to launch a cash offer to acquire Tandberg for $3B. The proposal was recommended unanimously by Tandberg’s board of directors and represents a 25% premium to the 3-month volume-weighted average closing price for Tandberg’s stock.
The acquisition, expected to close during the first half of calendar year 2010, will significantly expand Cisco’s portfolio of visual collaboration products and immediately establish Cisco as a market share leader in enterprise videoconferencing solutions. Cisco will gain a leading position in room-based videoconferencing systems, obtain potentially the best high-definition, high performance multipoint control unit technology (i.e. Codian) in the market today, and acquire new products in the accelerating desktop videoconferencing and media phone product categories.
The most significant overlap between Cisco’s current visual collaboration product portfolio and the products acquired with Tandberg will be the high-end telepresence systems. Cisco and Tandberg have both been very successful in the telepresence market and it will be interesting to observe and analyze Cisco’s approach to supporting, integrating, and consolidating these product offerings given that current enterprise customers of both vendors have made significant investments in these platforms.
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