Cisco has announced it will acquire privately-held Australian networking company Exablaze, a six-year-old manufacturer of specialist equipment for high-frequency traders and other latency-sensitive applications.
Terms of the acquisition were not discussed.
Exablaze chairman and co-founder Greg Robinson posted about the transaction, declaring himself “very flattered that an organization of Cisco's size and calibre would show interest in us, let alone seek to acquire us, and we are very excited by the opportunities that lie ahead.”
Cisco’s vice president for corporate business development Rob Salvagno wrote, in a blog post, that “Integrating Exablaze’s innovative products and technology into the Cisco portfolio will give our customers the latest field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology providing them with the flexibility and programmability they require.”
Salvagno added that as a result of integrating Exablaze’s technology, “financial and HFT customers will be better positioned to achieve their business objectives and deliver on their customer value proposition.”
Exablaze will also bring Cisco expertise in the world of algorithmic trading: Robinson wrote that “we will be investing a great deal of thought and deliberation into how we go about the merger process, keeping in mind the close business relationships that we've grown over the years, as well as the unique attributes of our agile and fast-moving industry.
Cisco thinks Exablaze's technology can also be applied to artificial intelligence and machine-learning applications, as well as high-performance computing, data center, cloud and edge computing scenarios.
In tenuously-related news, Australian cloud training company A Cloud Guru has acquired US competitor Linux Academy. It’s claimed the deal makes A Cloud Guru the largest company of its type on the planet.
FOOTNOTE: iTnews’ Simon Sharwood covered Exablaze in his previous journalistic life, visiting far-from-glamorous Sydney offices where soldering irons competed for space with the company’s signature products, then being made in very small batches.
Exablaze remembered that visit with a social shout-out!
@ssharwood thanks for your help at the beginning https://t.co/kRCxbUZclR
— flare2004 (@flare2004) December 16, 2019
