Cisco Pockets Power Management Developer JouleX for $107 Million

Cisco Systems (CSCO) said that for $107 million it will pocket JouleX, a privately held developer of software to manage power use for network-attached and data center assets.

The transaction is expected to close during Cisco’s Q4 2013. Under terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $107 million in cash and incentives for all JouleX’s shares. Once the deal is finalized, JouleX’s employees will be integrated into Cisco’s Connected Energy Solutions team within its Industry Solutions Group, reporting to David Goddard, vice president and general manager.

Cisco said the acquisition strengthens its software-as-a-service and Smart Service offerings with technology that helps companies control energy usage across global IT environments.

Faiyaz Shahpurwala, Cisco industry solutions senior vice president, said the vendor’s partners and customers have been asking for a solution “to operationalize their energy management capabilities in the network and reduce cost. JouleX’s cloud-enabled, agentless architecture will allow our partners and customers to quickly deploy this solution at scale in addressing their IT energy management needs.”

JouleX’s power management software helps to reduce energy costs by monitoring, analyzing and managing energy usage of all network-connected devices and systems through analytics-based policies tailored to meet an enterprise’s needs.

With the purchase, Cisco envisions that JouleX’s Energy Manager solution combined with its EnergyWise technology will supply customers with a comprehensive and accurate mechanism to measure, monitor and manage energy usage for network and IT systems across the enterprise, without agents, hardware meters or network configurations.

“JouleX’s technology will strengthen Cisco Services’ Smart Offerings and complements our evolving services strategy,” said Shahpurwala. “It extends our ‘Internet of Things’ capabilities and is a good alignment to Cisco EnergyWise.”

JouleX was founded in 2009 in Munich, Germany, and is backed by capital investments from Target Partners, TechOperators, Sigma Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners and Intel Capital. The company currently maintains research and development operations in Kassel, Germany.