Cisco completes acquisition of Tandberg

Cisco has completed its acquisition of videoconferencing firm Tandberg for US$3.3bn, and all Tandberg products are now part of Cisco's Telepresence portfolio.

Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of the emerging technologies business group at Cisco, claimed that the enhanced products will help meet growing demand for video technologies.

"With the Tandberg product line now available as part of our portfolio through an even wider range of partners, we can offer a far broader number of products for increased interoperability between companies using this technology, " he said.

"By incorporating the Tandberg end-point products into our Telepresence architecture we can also create a range of new experiences for our customers that we can then make available through partners of both companies."

De Beer added that Cisco is placing itself at the head of a market that it believes will become integral to the future of business, and that the firm expects video traffic on the network to reach 90 per cent in the coming years.

"The collaboration market is already worth US$34bn and this move positions us to play well in this market. It's always been Cisco's way to make big moves into markets that are in transition," he said.

Fredrik Halvorsen, former chief executive of Tandberg and newly appointed senior vice president of the Telepresence technology group at Cisco, claimed that Tandberg customers will now get more from their existing investments.

"Starting today we will offer a bridged environment for interoperable communications between Cisco and Tandberg products, and within the next 12 to 18 months we will develop a complete integrated environment," he said.

"Combining the portfolios and using the network as a platform will enable us to do better things with this technology, such as any-to-any interoperability and improved scalability without compromising security and reliability."

Halvorsen also welcomed the launch of Cisco's telepresence interoperability standard, and said that Tandberg had been one of the nine videoconferencing and telepresence vendors to have licensed the standard so far.

De Beer added that the company is looking at 3D technologies that work without the need for glasses or even a 3D screen in an effort to bring the technology into the business space.

Halvorsen claimed that Tandberg had been inundated with requests about its video technology in light of the volcanic ash cloud over Europe.