Trapeze swings into acquisition action

WLAN vendor buys wireless locations services specialist Newbury Networks

Wireless LAN (WLAN) vendor Trapeze Networks has snapped up WLAN location systems specialist and OEM partner Newbury Networks.

Trapeze, which was itself acquired by cabling manufacturer Belden in June, has been an OEM partner of Boston-based Newbury for two years. Newbury, which is backed by business incubation specialists Idealab, develops technology which aims to locate, manage and secure mobile assets over WLANs.

Newbury will now operate as a stand-alone business unit within Trapeze and all of its 16 staff will remain in employment in Massachusetts. The company will maintain previous reseller and OEM partner relationships and chief executive Michael Maggio will report directly to Trapeze president Jim Vogt.

Financial terms of the deal, which includes Newbury's patent portfolio of location services technology, were not disclosed.

Vogt said: “Newbury is a leader in location services with customers that include Apple, Bechtel, Hewlett-Packard, MIT, the National Security Agency and the Smithsonian Institution. Newbury also partners with other companies to deliver location service solutions to customers and these partners include 3Com and Nortel, two of our OEM customers. We believe the combination of Newbury and Trapeze creates a formidable competitor and a comprehensive wireless network solution.”

Maggio added: “Trapeze and Newbury share a common vision, strategy and commitment to enable enterprise customers to fundamentally enhance business processes through location-based services for WLANs. This combined organisation provides a growing market with proven WLAN solutions and location applications to seamlessly and securely link people, assets and information to build a truly mobile workforce.”