The enterprise collaboration market is as hot as it is undefined. There are many solutions out there that pursue to achieve the goals of fully unified communication sets but the dreamy objectives are not easily implemented in organizations. Especially large enterprises that already had one or more collaboration technologies rolled out, are now having a hard time to unify them or integrate new solutions that not replace the legacy infrastructure but leverages and utilizes it.
Cisco to grab Acano?
I’ve been interested in the British developer Acano since it was founded in 2012 and made its appearance in the market. Personally I liked their offering a lot and it’s as comfortable as it’s productive to use – it has a lot of charme. It is not another new tool, it’s fun to use.
Cisco has a history of grabbing the best solution of a niche market to harden their positioning. I am thinking back to a major move in the video conferencing market when they also acquired Tandberg for $3.3b. Now we first heard from industry expert Simon Dudley, that Cisco plans to buy Acano for $700m. While this was maybe not an unpredicted move for analysts, it is a serious sum for a developer of the size 170+ employees.
Details on the changes for future tech and solution roadmap of Cisco are not communicated but it seems possible that Cisco products like WebEx, Spark and several other video conferencing related components might be changed or replaced with the Acano solution. The Acano Manager is a very capable platform to enable services such as managed video conference calls and multi-point events. This was established in cooperation with VQ Communications based on their VQ Conference Manager.
Related articles:
“Are you being served?” by Mike Horsley
“The Concept of Virtual Meeting Rooms and the Challenges” by Edon Abdulovski
About Acano
Founded in 2012, Acano is a fast-growing technology company with a fresh perspective on audio, web and video conferencing. As a privately-held company based in London, Acano’s 170+ employees span four continents and form a dedicated group committed to changing collaboration technology. Acano makes teams work better.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.
Photo credit: Mark H. Anbinder
