Cisco is set to take on a range of new products from its previous competitor Tandberg, after today saw the final stages of its offer being completed.
When the deal is done, Cisco will have purchased all of the outstanding shares of Tandberg for 170 Norwegian kroner (18.74) per share, amounting to approximately 19 billion Norwegian kroner altogether. This compulsory acquisition will see Cisco as the only shareholders.
The chief executive of Tandberg, Fredrik Halvorsen, will become senior vice president and leader of the new TelePresence Technology Group formed within Cisco whilst the two separate technology portfolios are brought together to make one joint offering.
"Today we are celebrating a very important step for our customers in the journey to put people at the centre of collaboration and change the way we work," said Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of the Emerging Technologies Business Group at Cisco, in a statement.
"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 networking firm has been making a big push into the HD video conferencing market with telepresence over the past few years and by adding Tandberg to its books, it will be seen as an even bigger challenge to HP's Halo alternative.
Cisco would not confirm the date it expected the acquisition to be completed by.
