SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 18, 2010 – Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced it has completed its voluntary offer for TANDBERG (OSLO: TAA), a global leader in video communications. The close of this transaction, and the consequent creation of an extensive combined product portfolio, accelerates Cisco’s vision of changing the way people communicate and collaborate by delivering simple, unique and interoperable collaboration experiences.
“Today we are celebrating a very important step for our customers in the journey to put people at the center of collaboration and change the way we work,” said Marthin De Beer, senior vice president, Emerging Technologies Business Group, Cisco. “We strongly believe that telepresence – the next generation of videoconferencing – along with Cisco’s entire rich collaboration portfolio, powers this new way of working where everyone, everywhere, can be more productive through the pervasive use of video and face-to-face collaboration.”
The full TANDBERG product line is now part of the Cisco TelePresenceTM portfolio. Through this combined offering, the Cisco TelePresence business provides customers with access to a fully integrated architecture, a comprehensive network-based endpoint and infrastructure portfolio – designed to help provide multivendor interoperability – and a suite of unique experiences, customizable applications and flexible deployment models.
With the close of this transaction, Fredrik Halvorsen, the former CEO of TANDBERG, becomes senior vice president and leader of the new TelePresence Technology Group within De Beer’s organization. This newly-formed group includes three fully integrated businesses that will focus on endpoints, infrastructure and Cisco TelePresence cloud services.
Under this leadership, and with unified product lines, employees and vision, Cisco aims to provide consistency and investment protection for customers while speeding innovation that will positively impact the creation of new collaboration experiences.
Under the terms of the tender offer, and following the completion of the compulsory acquisition of shares, Cisco will have purchased all of the outstanding shares of TANDBERG for 170 Norwegian kroner per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately 19 billion Norwegian kroner or $3.3 billion. Cisco expects the acquisition to be dilutive to non-GAAP earnings in fiscal year 2010 and accretive to non-GAAP earnings in fiscal year 2011.
The New Cisco TelePresence Experience: Endpoints, Infrastructure and Cisco TelePresence Cloud Services
Cisco is unique in its architectural approach to collaboration, bringing together network-based, open, integrated and interoperable solutions. From multipurpose rooms and immersive solutions to personal systems that include PC clients, the combined Cisco TelePresence portfolio retains the full range of endpoints, infrastructure products and flexible deployment options from Cisco and TANDBERG. Customers are also provided with a comprehensive set of solution platforms for horizontal and industry applications. Cisco has committed to work to ensure the entire portfolio interoperates with third-party systems and PC video clients, including Microsoft Office Communicator.
The integrated infrastructure includes offerings and services that allow customers to enjoy exceptional intra- and intercompany collaboration experiences, high-performance multipoint meetings, and any-to-any interoperability. The services and offerings also allow robust management and scheduling capabilities and highly secure usability features like “One Button to Push” and “Continuous Presence.” Unique to Cisco TelePresence is a set of media services for advanced recording, streaming, transcribing, transcoding and video analytics capabilities.
Cisco also provides a spectrum of on- and off-premise deployment and service options for Cisco TelePresence. From comprehensive managed services, including intercompany, from the world’s top service provider partners to hosted intercompany services, cloud-based applications and even “do it yourself” options, customers have access to flexible deployment and services options that meet their unique needs. This means that customers can choose the right mix of intercompany collaboration options based on audience, location and connectivity.
Source: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2010/corp_041910.html