Broad Legacy and Next Generation Network Voice Capabilities will
Significantly Extend the nGenius Service Assurance Solution’s
Capabilities for Mobile, Wireline and Cable Operators
WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 19, 2012--
NetScout®
Systems, Inc. today announced it has acquired technology and assets
associated with the intelligent Customer Service Assurance (iCSA)
product line from privately held Accanto Systems, S.r.l., a subsidiary
of Accanto Systems, OY. Accanto Systems OY, headquartered in Helsinki,
Finland, and its subsidiary Accanto Systems, S.r.l. headquartered in
Modena, Italy, is an established provider of service assurance products
for telecommunications service providers that enable carriers to monitor
and manage the delivery of voice services over converged,
next-generation telecom architectures. The acquisition of voice
assurance technology from Accanto Systems will extend the nGenius
Service Assurance Solution’s support for Next Generation Network (NGN)
voice services, including Voice over IP (VoIP) and Voice over Long Term
Evolution (VoLTE), and enable the addition of support for legacy circuit
switched voice environments including Signaling System 7 (SS7) and
SIGTRAN.
“As voice services remain an essential foundation of service provider
offerings, the ability to address both legacy and next generation
IP-based voice services has become a pressing requirement for carriers’
service management activities. To meet the ongoing challenges of
evolving converged network architectures, service providers need the
ability to support data services along with a broad range of voice
services in a single, unified IP service management platform,” said Anil
Singhal, president and CEO of NetScout. “The technology acquired is
consistent with our packet-flow strategy and brings important voice
service monitoring capabilities that will strengthen our unified service
delivery management strategy and accelerate our time to market to
support emerging technologies like VoLTE. In addition, NetScout will be
able to address a broader range of voice assurance requirements for both
NGN and legacy deployments for mobile, wireline and cable operators.”
The acquired technology from Accanto Systems’ iCSA product line includes
all of the Pantera hardware probes, along with middleware and session
analysis applications. The acquired technology will extend the nGenius
Service Assurance Solution’s extensive control plane and data plane
monitoring capabilities to bolster support for NGN voice services,
including IP multimedia subsystems (IMS), and add incremental support
for legacy circuit switched voice including SIGTRAN and SS7.
“The Accanto technology brings into the NetScout portfolio broad
coverage of all legacy SS7 interfaces, STP/IP monitoring, and
multi-protocol correlation in fixed and mobile networks,” said Patrick
Kelly, Research Director of Analysys Mason. “While NetScout has a
leading market position in the IP probe monitoring segment, the Accanto
assets will add SS7 monitoring and IMS support, further extending their
technology lead. The Accanto technology helps to identify poorly
performing devices, network quality issues by cell site, and service
outages using the Pantera probes and analysis of data records specific
to customers and services.”
With the acquisition, an accomplished team of engineers from Accanto
Systems’ Modena location will transfer to NetScout, bringing a
significant amount of deep technical expertise in both legacy and NGN
carrier voice technologies. Consequently, NetScout has established a
development center in the Modena region of Italy. NetScout now has nine
research and development centers globally with four in the United States
(Massachusetts, California, Virginia and Utah), two in India (Pune and
Bangalore) and three in Europe (Ipswich, United Kingdom; Delft, The
Netherlands; and Modena, Italy).
NetScout did not assume Accanto Systems’ customer contracts, and current
Accanto customer deployments will continue to be supported by Accanto.
With this acquisition, Accanto becomes an authorized NetScout reseller
of the acquired products (formerly Accanto’s technology) as well as the
existing nGenius Service Assurance Solution.
Financial terms of the transaction are undisclosed. Under terms of the
definitive agreement, the transaction is expected to close in July 2012.
For the remainder of the fiscal year 2013, the acquisition is expected
to be earnings per share neutral on a non-GAAP basis and to be slightly
dilutive on a GAAP basis. It is expected to be accretive on a non-GAAP
and GAAP basis for the fiscal year 2014 and beyond.
About NetScout Systems, Inc.
NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT) is the market leader in Unified
Service Delivery Management enabling comprehensive end-to-end network
and application assurance. For 27 years, NetScout has delivered
breakthrough packet-flow technology that provides trusted and
comprehensive real-time network and application performance intelligence
enabling unified assurance of the network, applications and users. These
solutions enable IT staff to predict, preempt and resolve network and
service delivery problems while facilitating the optimization and
capacity planning of the network infrastructure. NetScout nGenius® and
Sniffer® solutions are deployed at more than 20,000 of the world’s
largest enterprises, government agencies, and more than 148 service
providers, on over one million network segments to assure the network,
applications, and service delivery to their users and customers. More
information about NetScout is available at http://www.netscout.com.
Forward Looking Statements
Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe
harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
and other federal securities laws. Investors are cautioned that
statements in this press release, which are not strictly historical
statements, including without limitation, the statement that the
acquisition is expected to not have a significant impact on earnings per
share in fiscal 2013, and to be accretive in fiscal 2014 and beyond, on
both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis constitute forward-looking statements
which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ
materially from the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties
which could cause actual results to differ include, without limitation,
risks and uncertainties associated with slowdowns or downturns in
economic conditions generally and in the market for advanced network and
service assurance solutions specifically, the Company’s relationships
with strategic partners, dependence upon broad-based acceptance of the
Company’s network performance management solutions, the Company’s
ability to achieve and maintain a high rate of growth, introduction and
market acceptance of new products and product enhancements, the ability
of the Company to take advantage of service provider opportunities,
competitive pricing pressures, reliance on sole source suppliers,
successful expansion and management of direct and indirect distribution
channels and dependence on proprietary technology and the ability of
NetScout to successfully integrate Psytechnics, FoxReplay, Simena and
the acquired Accanto Systems Technology and achieve operational
efficiencies. For a more detailed description of the risk factors
associated with the Company, please refer to the Company’s Annual Report
on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012 on file with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. NetScout assumes no obligation to
update any forward-looking information contained in this press release
or with respect to the announcements described herein.
NetScout, nGenius, InfiniStream and Sniffer are registered trademarks of
NetScout Systems, Inc.
Source: NetScout Systems, Inc.
Davies Murphy Group, Inc.
Doug Broad, 781-418-2415
netscout@daviesmurphy.com