Cisco Will Buy Communication Software Firm BroadSoft For $1.71 Billion

Cisco will buy software firm BroadSoft $1.71 billion in a bid to boost its software communications tools and diversify beyond its routing and switches products.

BroadSoft, which provides software to telecoms providers to enable them to offer unified communications over the Internet or though cloud services, will be integrated into Cisco’s collaboration portfolio,  which include the likes of WebEx.

Given WebEx is based on-premise, having BroadSoft’s software portfolio under is banner should give Cisco more product to offer that go on top of cloud services rather than need to be used in a client’s data centre or on site.

Big spender

“We chose BroadSoft as it provides a portfolio of cloud collaboration platforms and business applications, which strengthen our cloud investments and ability to deliver collaboration [products and services] to our global telecom provider customers,” said Rob Salvagno, vice president of corporate business development at Cisco.

“Following the close of the acquisition, Cisco and BroadSoft will provide a comprehensive SaaS portfolio of cloud based unified communications, collaboration, and contact centre software solutions and services for customers of all sizes.”

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of the Cisco 2018 calendar year, and will be the 200th acquisition by the company, clearly indicating that is has a healthy appetite to buying in technology from smaller companies to boost its product and services portfolio.

At the same time Cisco is not adverse to exploring partnerships as well as acquisitions, having recently extended its mobile networking partnership with Apple.

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