Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has acquired a company called Synata as part of its investment portfolio and strategy.
Synata is a private firm that is based in San Francisco. It provides technology that allows corporates to search information and data stored at external cloud services and in their premises. The two firms did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition. The acquired company will become part of Cisco Spark which operates the firm’s collaboration cloud.
Cisco’s collaboration division has previously made other acquisitions in the past including Acano, Tropo, Assemblage and Collaborate.com. Cisco is the leading maker of networking equipment in the world and the company has been planning to have a close association with both foreign and local government agencies that offer major procurements and create technology policies.
The company is also on a spending spree starting with the plans to invest $500 million in the next 3 years and an investment of $150 million to boost competition against its rival Slack Technologies Inc. In July last year, Cisco also revealed plans to invest a minimum of $10 billion in China over the next few years as part of solidifying its position in the country despite the geopolitical instability.
The networking equipment firm also has its eye on Germany because the country has extablished itself as a high-tech hub. It is home to many thriving companies especially data security and privacy firms. Cisco plans to help the company boost its digitization through investments in venture funds and startups in Germany.
Rob Salvagno, the head of mergers and acquisitions at Cisco stated that the acquisition deal with Synata will propel Cisco Spark. Rowan Trollope, the Vice President of Internet of Things at Cisco stated awestruck by what Synata’s technology could do on top of the end-to-end encryption on Cisco Spark. He further added that it helps eliminate the problem of searching for something that is not visible. Synata’ CEO Pat White posted a message on the company’s website announcing that Synata accounts have been shut down and indexes have been deleted.
