Oracle To Acquire Microsoft Lync Connectivity Tool Company
It appears Oracle wants to add networking to its broadening portfolio of datacenter and applications offerings. Oracle today said it will acquire Acme Packet for $2.1 billion, the company's largest acquisition since it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. It's also noteworthy because the move puts Oracle in direct competition with Cisco, who was rumored for some time to have had its sights on Acme. Another interesting twist: Acme Packet counts Microsoft as one of its key ecosystem partners -- its Session Border Controllers (SBCs) are used to enhance connectivity of Redmond's Lync Sever unified communications (UC) platform.
Enterprises and service providers alike use Acme's appliances to boost the reliability, interoperability and security of IP communications links. Because IP is inherently not reliable or secure, Acme targets session delivery networks to enhance session-based voice, video, data and UC. Acme's session delivery networks offer session boarder control and management to ensure prioritized, secure and trusted delivery of such services and apps.
The company provides enterprise SBCs, which Microsoft recommends to boost the reliability and interoperability of Lync when connected to telecom providers SIP trunks. According to an Acme description of its Lync integration support:
"The session management function routes sessions between your Lync and legacy IP telephony environments, centralizes dial plan management for the entire infrastructure and provides interoperability with non-Lync communications systems. The Net-Net ESD is fully qualified by Microsoft under its Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program and offered in software and appliance configurations that provide efficient, highly scalable solutions for integrating Lync into your network."
A February 2011 TechNet article describes the various network topologies it recommends.
Acme is seen as the leader in providing SBCs, though its revenues have declined amid growing competition. It claims over 1,850 customers in 109 counties have deployed 20,000 systems. The company counts 89 of the top service providers and 48 of the Fortune 100 as customers.
It will be interesting to see whether Oracle will continue and advance support for Lync, or whether Microsoft will turn its sites to Alcatel -Lucent, Juniper Networks or Sonus. Do you use Acme to provide SBC services to your Lync deployment? If so, how do you feel about Oracle acquiring the company? Drop me a line at [email protected].
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 02/04/2013 at 1:15 PM