AUSTIN, Tex., September 6, 2000 — Motorola Inc. today announced it has completed the acquisition of privately held C-Port Corp., a developer of high-end programmable network processors based in North Andover, Mass. Under an agreement announced three months ago, Motorola acquired the three-year-old company for 2.9 million shares of stock, valued at $308 million based on Monday's closing share prices.
The purchase is expected to expand Motorola's offerings in communications processors for high-end network equipment. The Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector in Austin said the market for network processors will grow to about $2.9 billion by 2004, based on a forecast by analysts at Cahners In-Stat Group. Currently, Motorola said it has more than 300 customers in the networking segment.
“By bringing C-Port into the Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector fold, we now enable high-bandwidth network processing applications and we can now offer our customers a scalable family of solutions from the SOHO, to the edge, to the core of the network,” said Daniel Artusi, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola Networking and Computing Systems Group.
C-Port said its C-5 DCP is the industry's only totally programmable network processor. When utilized with Motorola'sother communications processors, network equipment manufacturers can build totally reprogrammable smart networking equipment, said Fred Tucker president of Motorola SPS.
“Customer demand for network processors is exceeding even our most aggressive projections,” said Dr. Larry Walker, CEO and co-founder of C-Port. “With our common vision and complementary products, C-Port and Motorola will together be able to satisfy that demand and keep our customers moving forward in Internet time.
C-Port will continue to have headquarters in North Andover, where it employs about 90 people. It will be a part of Motorola Networking and Computing Systems Group, Austin, Texas.
Compiled from industry media sources