Motorola Inc. announced it has acquired the assets and business of NetPlane Systems Inc., a business of Mindspeed Technologies, the Internet infrastructure business of Conexant Systems Inc., in a cash transaction of an undisclosed amount. (Ed. Note: Conexant eventually ended up part of Synaptics Inc. in 2017; here's an article on the company's history from Moko Technology.)
NetPlane develops networking protocol software for the control plane (specialized hardware and software, embedded in networking equipment to direct operational behavior and thus provide stable connectivity), while Motorola Computer Group provides original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with intelligent hardware and software building blocks for next-generation networks and embedded computing applications.
With the acquisition, equipment providers can reduce integration time and costs by purchasing standards-based control plane software, hardware building blocks and pre-integrated platforms from one vendor. Additionally, Motorola Computer Group will continue to expand NetPlane's source code business and support its customer base of nearly 300 OEMs worldwide.
The market impact of this acquisition is significant because OEMs can decrease development and production costs by purchasing pre-integrated platforms, freeing time to focus on their own product differentiation.
"The acquisition of NetPlane Systems positions Motorola to provide our customers with superior time-to-market and leadership solutions for next-generation network products. Motorola can now deliver pre-integrated platforms saving OEMs internal development time and costs," says Wendy Vittori, vice president and general manager, Motorola Computer Group.
"With the telecom industry's focus on cost savings, we believe that pre-integrated platforms are critical to OEMs' new, sustainable product development models," says Deepak Shahane, vice president and general manager of NetPlane Systems. "NetPlane has consistently responded to the needs of network equipment manufacturers by bringing carrier-class capabilities to market through our software expertise in areas such as MPLS [multi-protocol label switching], GMPLS [generalized MPLS], IP routing, ATM, Frame Relay and network simulation technologies."
NetPlane Systems (Westborough, MA) has 62 employees and serves network equipment manufacturers that develop products for the next-generation Internet and other data communications and telecommunications networks from locations in Westborough, MA, and Hyderabad, India. Both operations will continue under the Motorola Computer Group (Tempe, AR).