Cisco Pushes Further into the Cloud with Meraki Acquisition

ThinkstockCisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) continues to push further into cloud computing, along with almost every other large tech company in the world. It announced it would by start-up Meraki Inc. for $1.6 billion. Cisco Systems reported: Meraki technology offers customers…

Published November 19, 2012, 6:43am ET · 1 min read

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) continues to push further into cloud computing, along with almost every other large tech company in the world. It announced it would by start-up Meraki Inc. for $1.6 billion.

Cisco Systems reported:

Meraki technology offers customers Wi-Fi, switching, security and mobile device management centrally managed from the cloud. Meraki solutions support BYOD, guest networking, application control, WAN optimization, application firewall and other advanced networking services.

Meraki was founded by members of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science. Meraki combines a high-velocity software development methodology with a tightly linked inside sales and channel model that will form the new Cloud Networking Group.

Shares of Cisco Systems ended last week at $17.99 but are up slightly in premarket trading to $18.00. The 52-week range is $14.96 to $21.30. Analysts have a mean price target of $21.69 on the shares, indicating potential upside of about 17.4%.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Trey Thoelcke

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.

All articles →