Avocent To Buy OSA Technologies

Avocent Corp., a supplier of client terminals for use with PC blades and other connectivity applications, said Monday that it has signed an agreement to acquire OSA Technologies Inc., a provider of management software and firmware.

Avocent will pay about $100 million--$55 million in cash and $45 million in Avocent stock--to acquire OSA, a privately held company. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter.

OSA's embedded management products will compliment Avocent's core Keyboard-Video-Mouse product line, John Cooper, president and CEO of Avocent, said in statement. "We believe the improved reliability, availability, and serviceability produced by these embedded technologies will extend Avocent's growth opportunities beyond our traditional KVM products," he said.

In conjunction with the acquisition, Dell's previous commitment to use OSA IPMI 2.0 in its next generation of servers will be transferred to Avocent, according to Cooper. Dell is an investor in OSA.