This article was published on March 28, 2012

Cisco takes over ClearAccess’ software business, team to enhance network management offering


Cisco takes over ClearAccess’ software business, team to enhance network management offering

Cisco this morning announced its intent to purchase ClearAccess, a privately-held company that provides software to service providers for the provisioning and management of residential and mobile devices.

Or, at least, Cisco is buying ClearAccess’ software business and associated employees, as the hardware portion of the company’s business (Smart RG Gateways) will have to stand on its own two feet under the name SmartRG.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition of ClearAccess boosts Cisco’s network management capabilities (see: Cisco Prime), a key part of its offering to enterprise clients.

Here’s how Cisco pitches the acquisition:

Service providers are faced with growing network complexity, exploding video and data traffic, and an increasing number of devices connected to their networks. With the proliferation of these devices, service providers are looking for ways to immediately lower operating expense while delivering and enabling new services.

ClearAccess provides service providers with tools that enables them to manage the ‘connected home’, including software for monitoring and managing bandwidth usage, parental controls, diagnostics and analytics.

Upon the close of the acquisition, which is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2012, the ClearAccess team will be integrated into the Cisco Network Management Technology Group.

ClearAccess was co-founded by Ken Hood (Senior VP of Sales & Marketing) and Joel Pennington (Managing Director of EMEA).

Investors in the company include DFJ Frontier, the Oregon Angel Fund, Blade Ventures and Buerk Dale Victor (now Montlake Capital).

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