Dive Brief:

• Cisco Systems says it will buy Acano Ltd., a London-based maker of hardware that cloud services providers install to manage videoconferences.
• It’s the latest move by Cisco to expand its videoconferencing and collaboration businesses.
• Cisco previously purchased Norwegian videoconferencing company Tandberg ASA for $3.3 billion and Web meeting service WebEx Communications for $3.2 billion.

Dive Insight:

Earlier this month, Cisco reported revenue from collaboration products rose 17% to $1.12 billion in its first fiscal quarter.

The company estimates that only one in 10 corporate conference rooms are connected with video, a statistic it hopes to change over the next decade.

One of Acano’s key selling points is the ability to connect conference room systems from different hardware providers.

“Our big customers are telling us, ‘we want to do more with Cisco but it has to coexist with our legacy infrastructure,’” said Rowan Trollope, a senior vice president who is general manager of Cisco’s collaboration technology group. “Acano is the bridge that makes everything work with everything else.”

Trollope said Acano’s solution also allows external cloud providers to manage video communications, which is of growing interest to businesses.

Cisco said the transaction is expected to be completed April 30, 2016.