Cisco acquires Inlet for $95 million

Cisco confirmed its plan to acquire internet video company Inlet over the weekend.

The deal will see the networking giant pay out $95 million (59 million) in cash to takeover all shares of the North Carolina-based firm and, if all the regulatory processes run smoothly, both companies expect the buyout to be competed in the first half of 2011.

Inlet specialises in Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) platforms for delivering video online. Cisco hopes to integrate its capabilities into its own Videoscape TV platform for both corporate and consumer applications.

"Service and content providers have a tremendous opportunity to deliver exciting video experiences as media consumption increases across mobile, desktop, and smart devices," said Enrique Rodriguez, senior vice president and general manager of the service provider video technology group at Cisco.

"Cisco's Videoscape platform will play a key role in reinventing the TV experience, and the acquisition of Inlet will enable our customers to leverage the network as a platform to deliver innovative video experiences to consumers on any device."

Inlet will be bringing over its current employees to become part of Rodriguez' division, although the company did not reveal what role its current chief executive (CEO), Don Bossi, would assume.

This is unlikely to be the only acquisition story we hear from Cisco this year as during its Cisco Live conference, held in London last week, CEO John Chambers outlined a push into security technologies and hinted heavily an acquisition might be round the corner.