Cisco recently announced that it is intending to acquire Harpenden, England-based networking software company Ensoft for an undisclosed amount. This deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2019.
Rob Salvagno, the head of Cisco’s M&A and venture investment team, said that the acquisition will further the company’s commitment to “simplify service provider networks through automation and programmability.”
Photo: A Cisco building on its campus / Credit: Cisco via Facebook
“Acquiring the Ensoft team accelerates this strategy and strengthens our commitment to our service provider customers. Cisco has developed the Cisco IOS XR operating system for service provider routing systems, which offers rich IP networking innovation across a variety of devices and form factors from a single code base,” said Salvagno. “Ensoft brings a strong talent pipeline to Cisco, adding a high-performance team to augment Cisco’s ongoing innovation in networking software. Ensoft’s unique culture placed it the top software company in the Sunday Times’ ‘100 best small companies to work for’ in 2018.”
At the time of the acquisition, Ensoft’s chief technology officer Simon Chatterjee was also working as a consultant exclusive to Cisco. And he is credited as being the co-architect of IOS-XR. Chatterjee wrote on his LinkedIn that as a consultant for Cisco, he had architectural responsibility on several product families that were consistently booking over $1 billion per year.
Ensoft has 70 engineers that work for the company and the company saw £10.13 million in revenue and post-tax profits of £2.96 million, according to the company’s annual report via The Register UK.
Going forward, Ensoft employees will be working at Cisco’s Service Provider Networking Group led by Senior Vice President and General Manager Sumeet Arora.
