We recently reported on the news that Cisco had acquired Tandberg, the Norway based video communication business, but it seems they may decide to drop their bid.
Less than 10% of Tandberg’s shareholders accepted Cisco’s $3 billion offer. Cisco have now extended the deadline to 18th November, but have said that if its offer is not accepted by the required 90% of Tandberg’s shareholders, it will withdraw.
This may just be sabre rattling on both sides, but considering that the current offer is a premium of nearly 40% on the current share price, it’s a remarkable show of confidence by Tandberg’s shareholders.
Cisco CEO John Chambers has expressed confidence that the deal will go through, and has reminded Tandberg’s shareholders that they have already walked away from other deals this year where they couldn’t get the pricing right. Bearing in mind that one of the deals they walked away from was with LifeSize, recently acquired by Logitech, and that Tandberg has a 40% share of the video conferencing market, they may not find it so easy to walk away from this deal.
Tag: company news
Logitech buys LifeSize
It was announced today that consumer peripherals maker Logitech has bought LifeSize, a video conferencing business based in Austin, Texas.
Logitech is one of the biggest players in the PC peripherals market, producing a wide range of webcams, headsets and microphones, as well as mice, keyboards, and music and gaming equipment.
This is definitely one to watch. If Logitech employs their consumer knowhow to make video conferencing a more affordable option, it has the potential to turn it into a more mainstream tool. Indeed, in their press release they suggest that it is their intention to make video communication as common as voice only communication.
The full press release can be read here.
Cisco Acquires Tandberg
Cisco today announced the acquisition of Tandberg, a Norwegian video communications company. Tandberg offer a range of hardware and software solutions from personal video conferencing through to high end Telepresence solutions, as well as network and content infrastructure tools and professional services.
According to their press release “This proposed acquisition would combine TANDBERG’s best-in-class telepresence and video conferencing portfolio with Cisco’s world-class collaboration architecture and network capabilities.”
This is a significant acquisition for Cisco, that clearly indicates a belief that there is a growing market for virtual communication technologies.