CEO John Chambers said on the company's most recent earnings conference call that the company would be picking up the pace on acquisitions, and today we get confirmation, as the company announced a deal to pay $271 million in cash and retention-based incentives for Lightwire, an Allentown, Pennsylvania-based company that develops "advanced optical interconnect technology for high-speed networking applications."
Cisco said in its announcement that "with expertise in CMOS photonics and packaging design, Lightwire has made innovations in optical interconnects by integrating multiple high speed active and passive optical functions onto a small silicon chip."
The deal is expected to closed in Cisco's fiscal third quarter, which ends in April.
Investors in Lightwire include New Science Ventures, Artiman Ventures and Novitas Ventures.
CSCO this morning is up 6 cents at $20.29.
Disclosure: My wife is a Cisco employee.
