Cisco acquires Five Across Inc. social networking company

Networking industry giant Cisco has said that they are acquiring privately held Five Across Inc. which specializes in developing tools to let companies create MySpace-like communities on their Web sites.

The company is paying an undisclosed amount to acquire this San Francisco company.

Five Across develops tools to add user-interaction functions and multimedia-sharing capabilities to company websites.

This is the Cisco’s 116th acquisition since 1993 and the first one in the growing social networking market. Cisco is also expected to spend more on acquiring similar companies to boost their products involving this segment.

Market experts believe that such acquisitions would help Cisco expand beyond its role as purely a network equipment provider. Danielle Levitas, a senior analyst at market researcher IDC added: “I actually see this as benefiting their core business — if they can promote users using their broadband more, that’s huge for them.”

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