Comms consolidation continues with Polycom making acquisition

Polycom says deal for Obihai Technology will boost the offerings available to its partners

Comms giant Polycom has acquired California-based voice over IP (VoIP) vendor Obihai Technology.

In a statement, Polycom said the deal would allow it to "compete more effectively" in the voice market, and also provide more complementary products to its channel partners.

Obihai Technology was founded in 2010 and specialises in manufacturing hardware and software for end-point VoIP devices.

Mary McDowell, CEO at Polycom, said: "The strategic acquisition of the Obihai team and its software platform allows Polycom to surge forwards on our strategy to deliver the best and most human-to-human experience in our audio and video solutions.

"Looking ahead to 2018 and beyond, the addition of Obihai will immediately open new markets and revenue opportunities for Polycom. The combined development team will enable Polycom to bring our great products to customers faster."

The comms sector has been in a state of flux in recent years, with Polycom itself shunning a takeover bid from Mitel in favour of a deal with private equity firm Siris Capital.

Mitel has since snapped up ShoreTel, while Avaya has offloaded its networking business and gone through a Chapter 11 saga.

The deal for Obihai is expected to close in the first quarter of this year.

Obihai founder Jan Fandrianto added: "Polycom is a proven leader for delivering products with outstanding audio quality and universal interoperability in the open-standard SIP market for VoIP end-points.

"When combined with Polycom, Obihai's product and cloud-services engineering expertise will be a powerful advantage for Polycom's partners and their customers in an increasingly competitive market."