Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Nortel picks up Pingtel from Bluesocket

By Mass High Tech Staff

More than a year after Burlington-based enterprise wireless network equipment maker Bluesocket Inc. paid an undisclosed amount for Woburn-based Pingtel Corp., the company has sold the division to Nortel Networks Corp.

Under the terms of the agreement, Nortel will acquire the key assets of Pingtel from Bluesocket, and Pingtel employees will be integrated into Nortel’s Billerica facilities. Bluesocket will invest the proceeds of the acquisition in product development, sales and marketing activities related to its core wireless LAN business, company officials said.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pingtel, which makes open source software-based unified communications products such as public branch exchanges (PBXs), has a previously established original equipment manufacturer relationship with Nortel, dating back at least two years. The deal will also bring that relationship in-house.

According to Nortel, the acquisition will bring the Canadian networking giant new open source software capabilities to its enterprise unified communications portfolio, as well as additional research and development capabilities. 

Bluesocket will, in turn, apply the proceeds of the sale to development of its wireless LAN business, which includes its Edge-to-Edge security architecture and its recently launched 802.11n controllers.

Founded in 1999, Pingtel was originally conceived to make soft phones for use with VoIP. In 2003, however, the company shifted gears to SIP-based PBX products. The company raised $15 million over two rounds from a syndicate of investors, including Vesbridge Partners and SAIC Ventures.