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News & Updates - Monday, March 28, 2005

Start-Up to Cisco: Get Lost!

The NYT gets the skinny on what's happening at Aruba Networks, a wireless networking start-up that has rather remarkably resisted buyout overtures from Cisco. The company and its investors believe independence and an IPO are the way to go.

I did it my way...

According to the article:

"We basically told them, 'There's not a number you can come up with that will be attractive enough to convince us to sell,' " said Don LeBeau, Aruba's chief executive, who had served as a senior vice president at Cisco in the 1990's.

That number could have been as high as $450 million, which is the amount Cisco paid for Aruba's competitor, Airespace, in January. We admire Aruba's gumption - but we also wonder if management is crossing the line into the land of hubris. Given the tough talk from Aruba's management in the NYT article, anything less than a homerun IPO will now be considered a failure.

Read: Sell? No, We'll Wait, One Start-Up Says - [NYTimes.com - reg. req.]
Read: Aruba Networks - Profile - [a:c]
Read: Cisco M&A Machine Back Up - [a:c]