Cisco Going Mobile, Acquiring Nokia?

Keruo writes "Sunday Business paper is reporting on its latest issue that Cisco Systems is considering of acquiring some large player in the mobile telephone field. According to a Reuters article the paper also suggests that the company is most likely Nokia. Neither of the companies have yet commented on the rumour." From the article: "Cisco's mainstay networking market was fast changing with the convergence of fixed-line and wireless networks, and Cisco needed a merger to acquire the technology to create intelligent wireless applications, which Finnish-based Nokia could provide."

Comments

Back to the old Cisco

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be their first really big acquisition in a long time, perhaps a bit too big for them?

What is the big deal?

[Zxsw85]

This article has no real content as the source of the information is unrevealed and both companies refused to comment. The real story is that large corporations have departments that work on plausible mergers/acquisitions day and night on future moves. They create possible mergers day and night, and will continue to do so after this. Without actual information, this article is fluff at best. The intresting part is the effects of this merger upon the technological fields.

Story is from a rumor mill

[Zarhan]

This seems to be a story that started out from a single source. All the articles in Google news seem to quote each other and none of them seem to know where the original reference is (probably some analyst has started it as a way to boost his holdings). Now Reuters has picked it up. Excpect some nice trading on Monday when first Helsinki stock exchange and NASDAQ later open up. Then everyone forgets about this two days later.

I wouldn't count on it.

[dnaumov]

I couldn't find any data on what these companies are WORTH to see how easily Cisco could acquire Nokia, but Nokia revenues for 2004 were at 29.3 billion euro whilst Cisco revenues were at 22 billion euro. I am not exactly sure Cisco could swallow Nokia and not choke on it big time.

Re:I wouldn't count on it.

[Lawrence_Bird]

in fact its short term investments, usually bills or the like.
One could argue Crisco could use that 14B to pay for a large
part of the deal, but there is no way Nokia goes with out a
premium of at least 20%, or $14B.  Hence you are left with
a $120 odd billion market cap company with at most $18B in
tangible assets trying to pay for $70B.  Its unlikly (to me)
that Nokia or its shareholders would be receptive to a merger
of equals approach and hence this would be treated as a
hostile acquisition.  Bad news for Cisco shareholders when
Nokia ownders dump $70B of stock on the market.  Can't see
Cisco financing that much in debt or new equity either.

Given this, its probably announced tomorrow :)

Re:When I See It

[haggar]

How wrong you are. Nokia produces tons of networking hardware, wireless equipment, and of course, mobile switching stations, BSCs, all sorts of 3G equipment, mobile network servers for all sorts of services, VOIP, multimedia, network management, etc. etc. etc. - the protfolio of Nokia Networks is so large and varied, I would never be able to do it justice. In fact, one line of products are the IP routers and firewalls that are considered by many to be best-of-breed. A lot of these solutions/products incorporate some Cisco device.

And of course, Nokia Networks is in tight symbiosys with Nokia Mobile Phones.

So, Cisco as a partner would make a lot of sense. But it would have to be a merger of equals, because Nokia is a very large company, with 70+ billion$ market cap and 13+ billion$ in the bank.

Re:Cisco and linksys.

[moosesocks]

WRT54G was a linksys product before the acquisition. there have been various revisions since then, but they've been mostly due to revisions of the chipsets used to power the router.

from what I hear, quality has gone UP across the various revisions, with specific regard to stability (probably related to the chipset), and power supplies.