Cisco Systems to Acquire Actona Technologies.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cisco Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO), today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Actona Technologies, Inc. of Los Gatos, Calif. Actona is a developer of wide-area file services software that facilitates data management across geographically distributed offices. Cisco currently offers a Full Service Branch solution that combines enhanced wide area network (WAN) connectivity with advanced network security, IP voice communications, and business application and video acceleration services on a common platform. Actona's technology will augment that offering by expanding the functionality of Cisco's branch office access router portfolio with intelligent network services that enable WAN-optimized file transfer and access. In addition, Actona will extend Cisco's solutions for Data Center Storage Consolidation to the branch office.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $82 million in cash for all outstanding shares not already held for Cisco's account and will convert outstanding Actona options to Cisco options. The acquisition of Actona is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2005.

"The large amount of mission-critical information that resides on employee desktop, laptop computers and workstations needs to be shared, backed up, and archived. Today's distributed branch office storage management methods are complex and expensive. Providing intelligent network services so distributed enterprises can centralize file servers and storage, and better protect and cost-effectively manage their remote office data is critical," said George Kurian, vice president for Cisco's Routing Technology Group. "Actona's technology is a best of breed wide-area file services solution, enabling storage consolidation while providing 'LAN-like' file access over a WAN."

Cisco's Full Service Branch solutions extend network intelligence to the branch office and remote worker, providing them with access to the same capabilities as their headquarters colleagues. Actona's network technology will provide users in the enterprise branch office with close to LAN-speed access to centrally deployed and managed global file systems and allow customers to take full advantage of their investment in data center network infrastructure. As a result, the costs and complexity of branch office data assurance and backup are significantly improved.

Upon close of the acquisition, the Actona team will report to George Kurian, vice president and general manager, Routing Technology Group. Actona was founded in 2000 and has 48 employees in the United States and Haifa, Israel.

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