Network-test-equipment manufacturer Ixia recently announced it has reached an agreement to acquire WiFi and WLAN tester maker VeriWave in a deal expected to be completed around July 18, 2011. Ixia did not release the purchase price or other conditions of the deal.
What Ixia did say is that the proliferation of sophisticated mobile devices, along with the growing number of applications and services moving to "the cloud," make this deal worthwhile. When announcing the acquisition, the company said that the prevalence of devices like smartphones, tablets and netbooks increase customer-access demands and quality-of-experience expectations. And with the move to the cloud, ever-increasing numbers of apps and services are being accessed remotely by these wireless devices. Ixia said that as a result, WiFi is now mainstream in industries like healthcare, education, retail and hospitality - though many people might amplify that statement by saying wirless has been mainstream in these industries for a long time, but these wireless systems are now being required to perform better than they ever have.
Ixia's top executive Atul Bhatnagar said the weaving together of VeriWave's capabilities with those of Ixia will enable stakeholders of all types - carriers, MSOs, enterprise and network equipment manufacturers - to access test capabilities for the complete end-to-end wireless ecosystem. The comany said, "VeriWave's leading WiFi capabilities will enable Ixia to provide oneo f the industry's most comprehensive end-to-end testing platforms for converged performance testing."