A day after it announced an extension of  its share tender offer till 3 December, Cisco Systems, says 84 per cent of the Norwegian videoconferencing equipment maker Tandberg ASA's shareholders have backed its 170 kroner ($30.32) per share offer.

The world's largest networking equipment maker now needs a mere 6 per cent to acquire Tandberg in its $3.4-billion takeover. The share tender was earlier to have expired yesterday.

Cisco said it would not extend its offer period beyond tomorrow and announce if it had mustered the requisite 90 per cent to complete its merger.

It also said it that would decide after the final tally after the expiration period on on 3 December whether to withdraw the offer or waive its stipulation of completing the deal if it received a 90 per cent backing.

Cisco, which has been on an acquisition spree, had announced its offer for Tandberg, the fastest growing company in the video conferencing industry with 2008 revenes of $809 million, barely two months back (See: Cisco to acquire Norway's Tandberg for $3 billion) in a bid to expand its video-conferencing products portfolio.

Cisco wants to integrate Tandberg's leading video endpoints and network infrastructure solution into its's collaboration architecture. This will enable intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability and ease of use across the full product portfolio - from desktop to immersive, multi-screen TelePresence..

This interoperability will benefit Cisco's customers, but also competitors and partners by accelerating customer interest in video collaboration globally.

With 2009 fiscal year revenue of $36 billion, made 5 acquisitions in 2008, 11 in 2007 and 130 since it was founded in 1984 by Stanford University computer operators Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner.

Since October it has announced plans to acquire Starrent Networks (See: Cisco in deal to buy Starent Networks for $2.9 billion ) a leading supplier of IP-based mobile infrastructure solutions targeting mobile and converged carriers, web-security firm ScanSafe (See: Cisco to acquire ScanSafe for $183 million) and the set top box business of DVN (See: Cisco acquires set-top box business of DVN Holdings for $44.5 million) to strengthen its operations in China, the world's largest cable market with 160 million subscribers, that is projected to grow to 200 million over the next three to five years.