By our reckoning, Granite Systems Inc is the fifth company this year to be acquired by Cisco Systems Inc, not including the major stakes Cisco has taken in two more. Cisco signed yesterday a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Granite – the company formed only last year by Sun Microsystems Inc co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim (CI No 2,727) – for its standards-based multilayer Gigabit Ethernet switching technologies, which have been implemented through application specific integrated circuit switching engines. Cisco is issuing $220m of new shares for Granite, which will become part of Cisco’s Workgroup Business Unit. There are 50 employees. The acquisition will enable Cisco to offer its customers a wider choice of backbone technologies.The two firms were already both members of the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance formed back in May (CI No 2,915).
