Continuing its attempts to boost its development efforts by rapidly buying in new technologies Bay Networks Inc has now signed to acquire network management start-up Netsation Corp, a privately held developer of multi-vendor network management software for $11.6m in cash. In January alone, Bay invested $37.7m for a 9% stake in voice over IP company NetSpeak Corp as well as acquiring VPN start-up New Oak Communications. Netsation has yet to launch its first product, Network Configurator, that is intended to be a cross-platform Java-based management software application for enabling network configuration across multi-devices across the network. Network Configurator aims to help consolidate and automate router and switch configuration efforts. The software consists of Java-based client and server modules, which currently only support Cisco routers. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based Netsation says there are a number of customers trialing the software which was began offering to beta sites in October. Bay says the software will be integrated with its Network Architect network configuration module, part of its Optivity management suite, within six to nine months. However, the first collaboration between the two companies is likely to be adding Bay’s switches and routers to the hardware supported by the application. According to Bay, this should be ready in time for the full release of the software early this summer when support for Bay routers should be added. The next stage will be to add Bay switch support by the end of the year and then support for Bay’s remote access switches early next year. Bay says it will take a substantial portion of the acquisition price as a one-time charge for in-process technology in its third fiscal quarter.
