The network is emerging as the central nervous system for business in today's hyper-connected world. As a result, it will be expected that people, things and sources of data are all connected and communicating with each other in real time. Today, I am pleased to announce Cisco's intent to acquire SolveDirect, a privately held company headquartered in Vienna, Austria that provides innovative, cloud-delivered services management integration software and services.

The move towards multi-sourcing and cloud services is accelerating the development of large ecosystems of companies -from enterprise IT and manufacturing, to SaaS providers -that need to share data in a secure and scalable way. Most of the interactions between these service partners today require manual effort, growing cost and complexity for an organization as their number of service partners grows. SolveDirect's cloud-based solutions offer enterprises and service providers a flexible way to integrate with service partners, and automate sharing of processes, data, and workflows in real-time by eliminating manual practices and bottlenecks, driving significant operational efficiencies. SolveDirect's capabilities will enable Cisco to extend our portfolio of smart and connected IT services to our global ecosystem of customers, partners and resellers.

Acquisitions and investments are a key part of Cisco's build, buy and partner innovation strategy. The SolveDirect acquisition aligns to Cisco's goal of developing and delivering innovative solutions that streamline data and workflows across a unified network. The SolveDirect team will join the Cisco Services team, under the leadership of Mala Anand, senior vice president, Cisco Services Platforms Group. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will acquire all shares of SolveDirect. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2013.