San Jose's Cisco Systems To Buy SF-based Meraki For $1.2 Billion

SAN JOSE (CBS/AP) -- Cisco Systems Inc., the world's largest maker of computer networking gear, is buying Meraki for $1.2 billion to expand its ability to let customers compute in the cloud.

Cloud computing refers to the increasingly popular practice of storing software applications in remote data centers that are accessed over the Internet instead of installing programs on individual machines.

Meraki Inc. is based in San Francisco and also has offices in New York, London and Mexico. The privately held company was founded in 2006 by members of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science. Meraki technology offers customers Wi-Fi, switching, security and mobile device management centrally managed from the cloud.

Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., said the acquisition is expected to close in its second fiscal quarter ending in January.

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