Update 1/11/19: Pleased to share that we have completed the acquisition of Ensoft.  Welcome to Cisco!

I'm pleased to announce Cisco's intent to acquire Ensoft Ltd. to further our commitment to simplify service provider networks through automation and programmability. Ensoft, a privately-held company headquartered in Harpenden, England, provides software solutions for service provider networks.

Cisco's networking software strategy is centered on enabling simplified, scalable, trusted, and automatable IP network infrastructure. Innovation in unified transport and service layers with Segment Routing (SR) and Ethernet Virtual Private Networks (EVPN) is accelerating evolution of mass-scale IP infrastructure embedded with programmability and automation.

Acquiring the Ensoft team accelerates this strategy and strengthens our commitment to our service provider customers. Cisco has developed the Cisco IOS XR operating system for service provider routing systems, which offers rich IP networking innovation across a variety of devices and form factors from a single code base. Ensoft brings a strong talent pipeline to Cisco, adding a high-performance team to augment Cisco's ongoing innovation in networking software. Ensoft's unique culture placed it the top software company in the Sunday Times' "100 best small companies to work for" in 2018.

We look forward to welcoming Ensoft employees to Cisco's Service Provider Networking Group led by Senior Vice President and General Manager Sumeet Arora. We expect this acquisition to be complete in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019.