Weeks after researchers declared it the session border controller market leader, Burlington, Massachusetts-based Acme Packet, Inc. today announced that it’s acquired a company that provides software-based SBCs for VoIP, unified communications and service-oriented architecture applications.

 

Officials at Acme Packet (News - Alert) say they’re paying about $22.8 million for Covergence, Inc., a company located in nearby Maynard that serves global 1,000 enterprises.

 

According to Andy Ory, Acme Packet’s chief executive officer and co-founder, the acquisition will bolster his company’s offerings through a technology that’s emerging as a standard IP communications industry protocol: SIP trunking.

 

The technology, with its strong ROI and increasing availability, “will drive many enterprises to deploy it to even the smallest of locations,” Ory said.

 

“With the acquisition of Covergence (News - Alert), Acme Packet accelerates its ability to now satisfy the SIP trunking SBC requirements of enterprise small offices and remote sites,” he said.

 

Generally speaking, SIP trunking is a service offered by Internet telephony service providers so that businesses can adopt VoIP using their Internet connection. That way, they can communicate with others who rely on the PSTN, since the enterprise IP-PBX (News - Alert) is connected to the service provider’s PSTN gateways over the Internet.

 

In this case, Covergence’s software-based SBCs are expected to complement Acme Packet’s “Net-Net” hardware-based SBCs by extending Acme Packet’s low-end product range for small and remote enterprise locations. Covergence’s SBCs are available as hardened Unix-based software for Intel (News - Alert) x86-class servers or as a virtual machine package, and Acme Packet officials hope they’ll bring company enterprise customers cost-saving price points for smaller sites.

 

In doing so, Acme Packet officials say they’ll extend their product line with low-end, software-based, enterprise-focused solutions, adding four of the Fortune 25 customers to their base. According to research firms Infonetics and Current Analysis, Acme Packet already claims about half of the total SBC market.

 

Under the proposed deal, “the core” of Covergence’s team will come to Burlington, including three executives who will assume similar roles: CTO Ken Kuenzel (News - Alert), Vice President of Enterprise Product Management Jim Donovan and Vice President of Business Development Marty Falaro.

 

The company will hold a conference call and Webcast reviewing the acquisition at 5 p.m. Eastern today.