Silicon Valley-based technology company JDS Uniphase Corp. on Wednesday announced an agreement to acquire Minnetonka-based Network Instruments for $200 million in cash.
In an interview, Douglas Smith, CEO and co-founder of Network Instruments, said "we had a number of companies calling us. For some reason there was a big amount of interest in our type of technology all of a sudden."
Smith said that his company initiated discussions in 2010 to merge into the California company, also known as JDSU. "We had a lot of discussion with them back then, but nothing happened," Smith said.
In the meantime, Network Instruments was acquired by San Francisco-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC, in April 2012. About a year later, JDSU renewed discussions with Network Instruments and Thoma Bravo, culminating in Wednesday's announcement.
"We were one of the last assets in the marketplace that hadn't been acquired that does what we do," Smith said. Network Instruments provides network monitoring and performance management tools.
"We design computer hardware and software products .... that large enterprise customers use in their data centers to track the delivery of their applications and to troubleshoot the delivery of those applications when things go wrong." Smith said. "The designing of the hardware and the writing of the software are things we actually do here in Minnesota."
Network Instruments was founded in 1994 and has 125 employees and annual revenue of approximately $40 million. The company will become a part of the network and service enablement division of JDSU.
David Heard, president of the network and service enablement business at JDSU, said in a statement: "Network Instruments has outstanding new products and an excellent reputation across the enterprise market."