Cisco to acquire cloud services management provider SolveDirect

Apparently today is a good day to buy. Following acquisitions announcements by Yahoo and Oracle, Cisco is announcing that it has agreed to buy cloud services management business SolveDirect, the company said today.

Cisco has said it considers acquisitions a big part of its strategy to innovate, and in January it plunked down $475 million to buy self-optimizing network startup Intucell. SolveDirect will help with Cisco’s goal of giving enterprise companies tools to streamline data and workflows across unified networks.

“SolveDirect’s cloud-based solutions offer enterprises and service providers a flexible way to integrate with service partners and automate sharing of processes, data, and workflows in real-time by eliminating manual practices and bottlenecks, driving significant operational efficiencies,” Hilton Romanski, head of corporate business development at Cisco, said in a blog post announcing the deal. “SolveDirect’s capabilities will enable Cisco to extend our portfolio of smart and connected IT services to our global ecosystem of customers, partners, and resellers.”

The Vienna, Austria-based SolveDirect team will join the Cisco Services group, which is led by Cisco SVP Mala Anand.

Cisco did not reveal the price it has agreed to pay for SolveDirect, and it expects the deal will close in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2013.

Cloud services photo via Stokkete/Shutterstock