Cisco will make software acquisition to keep pace with changing industry

Software mergers and acquisitions can help companies throughout the IT world remain up to date and ensure that they offer the latest products and services to customers. That at least is the mindset of Cisco, a company that designs, manufactures and sells networking equipment.
According to a CRN article, Cisco announced last week that it has made plans to acquire Composite Software, a data virtualization software and services company, for $180 million and retention-based incentives. The move is believed to be part of Cisco's push toward the "Internet of Everything," a concept which was discussed at Cisco's Partner Summit Conference in Boston earlier this month.
Phil Mogavero, vice president and regional CTO of PCM Inc., a solutions provider, was at the conference and explained to the news source how Cisco has been making a push toward cloud computing. Specifically, Mogavero said that the missing piece for Cisco has been software, and this opportunity will give the company a stronger ability to take in data and centralize it.
Cisco released a statement explaining that big data and cloud technology are drastically changing the IT landscape.
"The proliferation of traditional and new data sources plus the movement of data to the cloud complicates the ability to access all data assets," Cisco said. "This creates the need to complement traditional data warehousing with an agile business solution that provides a real-time, consolidated logical view of data."
CRN explained that Composite has a product that lets customers compile a large amount of data into an organized space. This gives clients up-to-date information and they can then make informed decisions about what they find. After the technology acquisition is complete, Cisco's customers will have that same ability.