Briefs: Nortel acquires router producer Tasman

San Jose router producer Tasman networks has been acquired by Nortel for more than $99 million cash in a deal expected to close in the first quarter.

Nortel said the deal would bolster its position in the fields of secure Internet Protocol telephony and multimedia networks.

Tasman's wide-area routers are designed to make it more cost-effective for business customers to deploy networks. Nortel said it would use them to augment its own convergence solutions for data and multimedia.

"We anticipate that the Tasman products will complement our enterprise infrastructure solutions and further our ability to provide seamless, feature-rich networks that support critical real-time applications -- including voice, video, and streaming multimedia applications," Nortel's Steve Slattery said.

Nortel plans to market Tasman routers as part of its Nortel Secure Router line aimed at small and medium-sized branch offices.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International