Cisco to aquire PostPath

Cisco today announced its intent to acquire privately held PostPath, Inc., a provider of innovative email and calendaring software. Based in Mountain View, Calif. with additional development operations in Sofia, Bulgaria, PostPath will enhance the existing email and calendaring capabilities of Cisco's WebEx Connect collaboration platform.

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective, adaptive collaboration is critical to creating and sustaining a competitive advantage. With PostPath's software, Cisco will extend the e-mail and calendar functionality of its flexible software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based collaborative platform that includes instant messaging, voice, video, data, document management and Web 2.0 applications. This combination will enable customers to use collaboration to accelerate business processes, within and between businesses.

"The acquisition of PostPath complements our strategy to develop an integrated collaboration platform designed for how we work today and into the future, providing real productivity gains and a more satisfying user experience", said Doug Dennerline, Cisco senior vice president, Collaboration Software Group. "Our 'cloud-based' delivery model offers our customers rapid deployment and compelling economics."

PostPath offers a Linux-based e-mail, calendaring and collaboration solution. It is interoperable with many other e-mail solutions and provides a browser-independent AJAX Web client. In addition, PostPath's software is compatible with a number of mobile clients.

PostPath's software is highly secure and scalable, and it incorporates innovative Web 2.0 architectures to meet the requirements of large enterprises and small businesses alike to provide Cisco customers with a next-generation user experience.

The PostPath acquisition exemplifies Cisco's "build, buy, and partner" innovation strategy to move quickly into new markets and capture key market transitions. In addition to internal software innovations, Cisco actively employs investments in, and acquisitions of, other companies to support its software strategy; recent purchases include industry leaders WebEx, IronPort and Securent.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $215 million in exchange for all shares of PostPath. The transaction will be accounted for in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in Cisco's first quarter of fiscal year 2009.

Upon completion of the acquisition, PostPath employees will become part of the Cisco Collaboration Software Group (CSG). CSG is part of the recently established Software Group, consisting of Cisco's major software businesses; including the IOS network operating system, network and service management, Unified Communications solutions, policy management, and SaaS offerings.