US based networking equipment firm Cisco Systems has signed a $1.2bn deal to acquire cloud networking start-up firm Meraki.
Founded by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), San Francisco-based Meraki offers small and medium sized firms wireless infrastructure products which can be managed through the cloud.
With expected completion in the second quarter of Cisco’s fiscal 2013, the deal will maximise Cisco’s plans to provide more software-centric applications to ease network management, assist clients in allowing mobile workforces and create new revenue opportunities for partners, the company said in a statement.
Cisco Enterprise Networking Group senior vice president Rob Soderbery said the acquisition of Meraki enables Cisco to make simple, secure, cloud managed networks available to the firm’s global customer base of mid-sized businesses and enterprises.
"These companies have the same IT needs as larger organisations, but without the resources to integrate complex IT solutions," Soderbery said. "Meraki’s solution was built from the ground up optimised for cloud, with tremendous scale, and is already in use by thousands of customers to manage hundreds of thousands of devices."
Supporting BYOD, guest networking, application control, WAN optimisation, application firewall and other advanced networking services, Meraki’s technology will also provide clients with abilities including Wi-Fi, switching, security and mobile device management centrally managed from the cloud.
Just days before this deal was announced, Cisco also agreed to acquire cloud management firm Cloupia in a deal worth $125m.
