Cisco to acquire switch maker Summa Four

Cisco Systems has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire publicly-held Summa Four for $US116 million.

Summa Four is a maker of programmable switches for service provider networks. Cisco said Summa Four's switches will enable it to offer telephony applications to new and existing service providers, and extend them to a voice-over-IP infrastructure.

With this acquisition, Cisco plans to provide application developers with an "open services environment" for writing software for circuit- and packet-switched networks.