Odds and ends: Cisco acquires Latigent; DivX and Yahoo; Jaxtr
A few odds and ends from the likes of Cisco, Yahoo and Jaxtr this morning.
Cisco still loves Web 2.0
Cisco Systems made its 123rd acquisition buying Latigent, a Web-based business intelligence and analytics company, for an undisclosed sum.
Latigent provides call center software and reporting tools in a Web 2.0 wrapper. Cisco says Latigent's tools "are built from the ground up to take advantage of Web 2.0 principles that help enable customers to create flexible, scalable, easily customizable, and intuitive historical and real-time reports for their contact centers."
That's a mouthful, but Latigent will fit in with Cisco's unified call center communications offerings. Latigent was founded in 2002
DivX distributed through Yahoo Toolbar
DivX and Yahoo inked a two year deal with will offer a co-branded toolbar that will distribute DivX video software tools.
The toolbar, which goes with IE 7, will link out to DivX.com and Stage6.com, a video community site for DivX devotees. DivX will discontinue its current third party software that distributes its software. See Yahoo and DivX statement.
Jaxtr gets financing; has Skype envy
Jaxtr said it landed $10 million in financing from August Capital, Draper Richards, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mangrove Capital.
Jaxtr also sounds like it has a serious case of Skype envy. First Jaxtr notes that most of those aforementioned investors also invested in Skype.
In a statement, it drops this Skype-heavy paragraph:
Jaxtr (www.jaxtr.com), the company that links your phone to the Web, today announced that its registered user base has reached 2,000,000 -- up from 1,000,000 just 30 days ago. As a result, jaxtr has taken only a third of the time it took Skype in late 2003 to double its user base from one to two million. Unlike Skype, where phone calls are placed from a computer and require a download, jaxtr allows its users to enjoy the cost savings of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) from the convenience of any ordinary mobile or landline phone.
Jaxtr is a social media communications tool that's distributed through widgets primarily. The company obviously would love to replicate Skype's exit strategy--a big sellout to eBay. The statement has more.