6/17/2004 -- Cisco Systems, one of the most active acquirers of companies and technology assets in the days before the economic downturn, is back to its old tricks again. Today it announced its third acquisition this year, picking up the intellectual property, most of the engineering team, and select assets from privately-held Procket Networks, Inc.

Procket Networks specializes in concurrent services routers, with additional expertise in silicon and software development.

The acquisition valued at approximately $89 million in cash -- is one of Ciscos priciest to date. Contrast that with Ciscos purchases of Twingo Systems and Riverhead Networks, which cost the networking giant a combined $44 million. At the same time, neither Twingo nor Riverhead ever enjoyed the prominence of Procket, which at its launch in 1999 collared a substantial degree of funding from venture capitalists. By 2003, Prockett is believed to have raised nearly $300 million in several rounds of VC financing.

"The addition of Procket's engineering team to Cisco offers a unique opportunity to accelerate development of silicon and software across Cisco's next generation routing portfolio," said Mike Volpi, senior vice president and general manager of Ciscos Routing Technology Group, in a statement. "Procket has some of the world's foremost designers of sophisticated silicon, software, and network systems with an average of over 15 years of experience in their respective industries. Adding this talent to Cisco's world-class engineering team will help drive continued innovation in network infrastructure, and that is good news for our customers and the industry at large."

Procket markets the PRO/8812 and the PRO/8801, both concurrent services routers. The PRO/8812 is a large chassis system, while the PRO 8801 fits into a smaller form-factor. Both routers use line cards to house media adapters, and can be easily expanded to support additional capacity requirements.

Procket co-founder and former chief engineer Tony Li has worked for both Cisco and rival Juniper networks in the past. Li is credited for his work in helping to develop the operating software that powers Ciscos GSR 12000 platform, and, later, Junipers first big router, the M40. Li left Procket in March of this year.

The deal is expected to close in Q1 of Ciscos 2005 fiscal year. When finalized, Cisco will own Procket's entire IP portfolio, while its engineers will become part of Cisco's Routing Technology Group. -Stephen Swoyer