California: Ixia, a firm dealing in converged IP testing, has acquired Agilent Technologies' N2X data networks product line for $44 million. The deal includes customers and sales, research and development teams.

"This strategic and decisive move accelerates our growth, captures additional market share and positions Ixia to offer even greater value to our global customers and partners," said Ixia President and CEO Atul Bhatnagar, reports IndiaWest.com. "With our leadership position in high speed Ethernet, IP testing, we will leverage the N2X products and customer base to further penetrate markets, particularly in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and Asia."

According to Bhatnagar, Agilent unit has about 200 employees and Ixia about 950, and so the combined company will have about 1,150 workers worldwide. Ixia has a research and development center in Kolkata and a sales staff in Bangalore. It now adds from Agilent, an R&D center in Bangalore and operations in Vancouver, Canada; and Melbourne, Australia; two countries where Ixia previously did not have a presence.

Besides a strong broadband and carrier access protocol expertise, the N2X line is known in the industry for its user interface and excellent customer satisfaction. Ixia, Bhatnagar pointed out, will continue to support N2X through 2015 with its 'Fusion initiative,' which allows N2X owners to take immediate advantage of Ixia's extreme scalability, higher speed Ethernet support, and layer 4-7 application testing.

Customers will have the option of continuing with N2X or adding features 'seamlessly' from Ixia, he added. "They can take the best DNA from both." Ixia in June acquired California based Catapult Communications, a developer of 3G and 4G wireless networking test products, for about $105 million - $63 million net in consideration of Catapult's cash and investments.

The deal added 3G and 4G wireless test solutions to Ixia's IP performance test systems and service verification products. Catapult was a supplier to companies including Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Nortel and Nokia Siemens Networks. Ixia also announced last month that its net revenues for the third quarter of 2009 will be about $46.4 million, compared to earlier guidance of $42 million-$47 million, including a full quarter of results for Catapult.