Nobody’s going public these days, but the acquisitions market is certainly heating up. A day after Boeing announced its purchase of Bingen, WA-based Insitu, Cisco (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CSCO]]) is getting into the act. The San Jose, CA-based networking giant announced it is buying Pure Networks, a privately held company based in Seattle. The deal is worth some $120 million (for all shares of Pure Networks) and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of fiscal year 2009.
Pure Networks makes software and tools for managing home networks, such as diagnostics for why your wireless Internet connection is running slow. It currently partners with Linksys, which was bought in 2003 by Cisco for $500 million, to help consumers set up and secure their home Internet and various networked devices more easily. The company’s “innovations will provide Cisco and Linksys with a key underpinning to take home networking to the next level of ease of use,” said Ned Hooper, senior vice president for Cisco’s corporate development and consumer group, in a statement.
The employees of Pure Networks will stay in Seattle and be integrated into the Linksys team, according to the statement. As Xconomist and Clarion Group partner Eddie Pasatiempo pointed out last week, that stage—deal integration—is the real test of any acquisition’s success.
And speaking of home networks, the cable to my building has been down all morning. Heard that, Comcast?
