Here's Why Cisco Shelled Out $700 Million for This Company -- Tech Roundup
Bloomberg News
Cisco Systems' (CSCO) - Get Report buying spree continued Friday with the announcement it's buying collaboration infrastructure and conferencing software firm Acanofor $700 million in cash and assumed equity. The privately held, London-based company specializes in connecting video systems across platforms. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2016.
"By combining Acano's expertise with a Cisco team that has driven incredible growth of our collaboration business, we believe we can accelerate our collaboration momentum and bring new capabilities to market faster," Cisco's vice president of corporate development, Rob Salvagno, said in a blog post. "The Cisco and Acano teams together will help make video dramatically more pervasive to the desktop and to conference rooms of all sizes."
For those of you keeping score at home, this is Cisco's ninth acquisition announcement of 2015. Its shares closed Friday at $27.57, up nearly 1%.
How big a perfectionist is Elon Musk? Reuters reports his electric car company, Tesla (TSLA) - Get Report , is issuing a voluntary recall of all 90,000 Model S sedans to check their front seat belts because the company found one -- just one -- in which they hadn't been connected properly.
"This vehicle was not involved in a crash and there were no injuries," the company said in a letter to owners. "However, in the event of a crash, a seatbelt in this condition would not provide full protection."
Mind you, they've already checked more than 3,000 of the cars, and found not a single other vehicle with this issue. And they described for owners how to examine their own seatbelts to see if they had an issue. But any Model S owner who's at all concerned can make an appointment to get their seatbelts checked out for free -- just in case. Because that's just how Tesla rolls. It shares closed at $220, down nearly 1%.
Consumer electronics company Jawbone, best known for its fitness trackers and Bluetooth headsets, just laid off about 60 people -- 15% of the company -- according to TechCrunch. It described the move as part of an effort to streamline its operations.
The company has struggled to build momentum in its key fitness tracker market, where Fitbit (FIT) - Get Report holds the lion's share of the high end, Chinese maker Xiaomi dominates the low end, and everyone is feeling the heat from the far more versatile Apple (AAPL) - Get Report Watch.
Nimble Storage (NMBL) was burned in the markets Friday after reporting quarterly earnings Thursday that missed analysts' expectations with a 14 cents per-share loss. The data storage platform provider said revenuesrose 37% to $80.7 million. What analysts had forecast was a loss of 8 cents per share on revenue of $87.7 million.
NMBL closed Thursday at $20.39. By early afternoon Friday, it had lost 51% of its value, closing at $10.06. The company laid part of the blame for the shortfall on a slower-than-expected payoff from its investments in its enterprise business.
Workday (WDAY) - Get Report , a provider of enterprise cloud applications, also reported an earnings miss Thursday. The company reported a loss of 41 cents a share for the quarter, significantly worse than the 4 cent a share loss that was analysts' consensus prediction. But it beat on revenue, which came in at $305.3 million for the quarter, compared to expectations of $303.5 million.
Shares closed down 1.4% to $83.09 Friday.
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.