re: Nokia Siemens to Acquire AtricaWell, congrats to my friends in Atrica!
I must say that the slowdown in startup acquisitions in the infrastructure space still shows no sign of letting up. Calix still hasn't gone IPO, Atrica seemed to be doing well, but I guess not well enough.
Compare that to Facebook and it's $15B acquisition and you wonder why any startup is still building infrastructure!
A $100M acquisition is a surprise - the VCs are probably cutting their losses. Unless, of course, they had a down round or two. Anybody know if they did a washout at any time?
re: Nokia Siemens to Acquire AtricaThanks for chiming in, Kshitij. Can't answer the washout question, but I do agree that the slowdown in equipment-vendor exits is going to last a while.
A lot of the more obvious candidates seem to lack the punch for an IPO -- you mentioned Calix; Atrica would fit in that groove; Force10 seems to have wound up there. The WiFi sector, too.
And the acquisition prospects for them are fewer. Ericsson and possibly NSN now have been beefing up, and that's the main deal driver in the sector, isn't it?
Well, OK, there was Cisco-Navini. Can't imagine Cisco would have wanted to buy Atrica, though.
re: Nokia Siemens to Acquire AtricaI wonder whether this aquisition will change the NSN CE strategy. NSN is very much in favour of PBB-TE and promoting it everywhere they can. Sometimes you might think they have even invented PBB-TE. Atrica does not quite fit into this PBB-TE story. Maybe NSN is only buying customer footprint? Maybe a shift in strategy? Maybe something else?
re: Nokia Siemens to Acquire AtricaI doubt MSFT really believes Facebook is worth $15B. All they did was set the price expectation out of range for GOOG and Yahoo. It cost them chump change to this. Facebook founders aren't as bright as Mark Cuban who sold his entire company (broadcast.com) to a bunch of naive young ones running Yahoo at the time for a few billion. These guys will never be billionaires not to even mention cash flow positive.
I think it's also the "HOLY-XXXX" valuations for web startups that are probably making the up-and-comers go where the money is. When Facebook gets a valuation of so many Billions of $$$, it makes the founders think hard about why they should focus on a sector that hasn't had too many home runs recently...
It's kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But isn't that often the best time to invest in something? When nobody else wants to do something in that sector....?
re: Nokia Siemens to Acquire AtricaDoes anyone know if the products from atrica are comparable with advas products or don-¦t the fight against each other?
re: Nokia Siemens to Acquire AtricaSorry guys....but: 1.The sector is dead for startups!!! Thank you carriers, you made sure of thatGǪ 2.Talent at Atrica ??? ( from someone who really knows the company very well) it is at best an average company when it comes to talent. $100M for ~ 80 average engineers ( I know the company has 180 employees) ??? you can put together a significantly better team in the US ( Huge pull of talent is avail as result of the demise of the US telecom market), overall less expensive ( note that Israel is not cheap!)GǪ.. who will not join, for lets say GǪ.250,000 bonus? It is a very silly idea that they bought the company for the talent GǪ. And if they did, they disserve what they get! 3.p.s. I am not a frustrated ex-employee GǪ.:-)
I must say that the slowdown in startup acquisitions in the infrastructure space still shows no sign of letting up. Calix still hasn't gone IPO, Atrica seemed to be doing well, but I guess not well enough.
Compare that to Facebook and it's $15B acquisition and you wonder why any startup is still building infrastructure!
A $100M acquisition is a surprise - the VCs are probably cutting their losses. Unless, of course, they had a down round or two. Anybody know if they did a washout at any time?