Despite its interest in having the Sunnyvale, California company extend its Ethernet switching technology to Token Ring, IBM Corp seems to have missed out on the bidding for Kalpana Inc to Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco yesterday announced that it is to buy the company for 7.48m new Cisco shares, valuing Kalpana at an indicated $203.8m, where it had been suggested that IBM was prepared to pay no more than about $150m (CI No 2,521). Kalpana has some 150 employees and goes through distributors in Europe and Asia. Chipcom Corp shares jumped nearly four points at $55.25 on the announcement in relief that the buyer will not be IBM – IBM currently buys a product similar to Kalpana’s switch from Chipcom.
