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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: VegasMan who wrote (18230)	10/16/1998 11:00:00 AM
From: VegasMan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77397

dailynews.yahoo.com Friday October 16 10:14 AM EDT Cisco Agrees To Buy Phone-equipment Maker Selsius By Duncan Martell SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO - news), the No. 1 maker of equipment that links computers, agreed to buy closely held Selsius Systems Inc. for $145 million in stock and cash, to better compete with rival Lucent Technologies Inc. (LU - news) The planned acquisition, which Cisco announced this week, marks the first time the company has bought a maker of telephone equipment, and shows that Cisco is taking more direct aim at the $8 billion-a-year PBX market. PBXs, which stand for private branch exchange, are switches that companies and organizations use to route phone calls between extensions and to the public telephone network. Dallas-based Selsius, which has 51 employees, has developed a technology that lets users plug phones into a computer network and which will transmit voice over computer networks as packets of data. ''For the first time we can build a unified network that puts your data and voice traffic over the same wires,'' Michael Volpi, vice president of business development for Cisco, said. Cisco is racing to develop and build networks that transmit voice, data and video across the same network, rather than across separate ones, to better compete with No. 1 phone equipment maker Lucent, Canada's Northern Telecom. Reflecting the industry trend of consolidation of previously separate networks into one, Cisco and Lucent and other telecommunications equipment makers are increasingly going after the same business. Selsius is already shipping its products -- telephones and special software called Call Manager that functions as the brains of a computer network-based PBX system -- and Cisco will brand them with its own name, Volpi said. San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco also said it will take a charge of 3 cents and 6 cents per share for purchased in- process research and development in its fiscal second-quarter. Under terms of the agreement, shares of Cisco common stock and cash with an aggregate value of $145 million will be exchanged for all outstanding shares and options of Selsius. Selsius' 51 employees, led by Selsius President and Chief Executive Officer David Tucker, will become part of Cisco's Enterprise line of business headed by Senior Vice President Mario Mazzola. In a poll by First Call, analysts expect Cisco to earn 35 cents a share for the fiscal second quarter.