Cisco is to acquire CliQr Technologies for $260 million to strengthen its hybrid cloud management offerings.
CliQr, based in San Jose, provides application-defined cloud management solutions for hybrid cloud environments.
Cisco said this acquisition will help its customers simplify and accelerate their private, public and hybrid cloud deployments.
CliQr was already working with Cisco by providing a number of the latter's datacentres with switching and cloud solutions. The vendor provides a single platform upon which customers can manage their entire application lifecycle across hybrid IT environments.
“Customers today have to manage a massive number of complex and different applications across many clouds,” said Rob Salvagno, vice president for corporate development at Cisco.
“With CliQr, Cisco will be able to help our customers realise the promise of the cloud and easily manage the lifecycle of their applications on any hybrid cloud environment.”
In a statement on CliQr’s website, co-founder and CEO Gaurav Manglik added: “Today we’re taking the next step toward our vision of unleashing the potential of the ever-changing cloud and related hybrid IT landscape by entering an agreement to be acquired by Cisco.
“When CliQr becomes part of the Cisco team, we will make an even bigger impact in driving efficiencies, security and management of hybrid cloud IT for our mutual customers.”
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, when the CliQr team will become part of Cisco’s Insieme business unit, reporting to Prem Jain.
CliQr was originally founded in 2010, emerging from stealth in 2012. The company raised a little over $38 million from investors that included Google Ventures and Foundation Capital, among others.
Cisco has been cherry-picking firms lately in an effort to bolster its muscle in the cloud market. It announced its intention to acquire IoT specialist Jasper for $1.4 billion last month, which was the largest publicly disclosed sum since it bought Sourcefire in 2013.
The networking giant has also acquired other firms with cloud specialisms in the last 18 months, including 1 Mainstream, OpenDNS, Piston Cloud Computing and Tropo.
Hybrid cloud is become a key selling proposition as the cloud giants, and competitors looking gain market share, attempt to convince companies that their offering is the best way to begin adopting more cloud technology in their business.
IBM and VMware signed a deal last week to help enterprises find reap the benefits of hybrid cloud sooner.
