Cisco pays $830 million for anti-spam company IronPort

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

January 05, 2007

Cisco Systems Inc. said it has agreed to pay $830 million in cash and stock to acquire privately held IronPort Systems Inc., a maker of anti-spam and antivirus security products.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2007. Analysts said the acquisition will help Cisco further shed its image as solely a maker of networking infrastructure gear and capitalize on products and services that use the network itself.

The acquisition allows Cisco to use data gathered by IronPort's technology and stop threats such as spam and computer viruses before they can reach a company's computer system, said Zeus Kerravala, a network infrastructure analyst with Yankee Group.

Kerravala added that he expects Cisco to pursue even more acquisitions in this market in the coming year.