Computerworld

Fortinet targets $US5 billion enterprise Wi-Fi market with networking acquisition

“We believe the extension of our market-leading end-to-end security platform will increase our growth opportunities and benefit our customers and partners globally.”

Cyber security firm, Fortinet, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wi-Fi networking specialists, Meru Networks, for $US44 million.

According to the security solutions provider, the acquisition is synergistic with Fortinet’s secure wireless vision and enterprise growth focus, broadens the company’s solutions portfolio, and expands its opportunity to address the $US5 billion global enterprise Wi-Fi market with integrated and intelligent secure wireless solutions.

The addition of Meru’s Wi-Fi solutions to the Fortinet portfolio extends the delivery of the user experience, which aims to provide “peak performance” in environments requiring high capacity load and a high-density of wireless users, such as enterprise, education, healthcare, and hospitality.

“The acquisition of Meru Networks maps to our overall security vision of combining strong network security with ubiquitous connectivity,” says Ken Xie, founder, chairman and CEO, Fortinet.

“We expect this to accelerate our innovation through the delivery of new solutions and services to help enterprises of all sizes deploy, manage and secure wired and wireless networks in a mobile era.

“We believe the extension of our market-leading end-to-end security platform will increase our growth opportunities and benefit our customers and partners globally.”

The acquisition of Meru Networks also adds an experienced research and engineering team to help accelerate Fortinet’s strategy to secure and manage wired and wireless devices together at any entry point to the network.

In addition, Meru’s portfolio of more than 33 awarded patents and 35 pending patents bolsters Fortinet’s more than 210 issued and allowed patents worldwide, and over 165 pending patent applications, and represent innovation that will benefit the more than 14,000 Meru customers and 210,000 Fortinet customers worldwide.

“The combination of Fortinet and Meru is expected to strengthen our position in the overall enterprise wireless market, addressing the requirements of CIOs to provide secure, uninterrupted connectivity for their highly mobile end-users,” adds Dr Bami Bastani, president and CEO, Meru Networks.

“Meru's technology differentiation, and its position as the only ONF-certified SDN wireless solution, along with Fortinet's core, edge and access security solutions, will provide a broader solutions portfolio for our sales teams and channel partners.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Fortinet will pay $US1.63 per Meru share in cash, an equity value of approximately $US44 million for the transaction with the acquisition expected to close during the third quarter of calendar year 2015.

Founded in 2002, Meru completed its initial public offering in 2010 and for the full year ended December, 2014, reported revenue of $US90.9 million.