OPNET Technologies, Inc. Acquires Clarus Systems, for Unified Communications Management

OPNET Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPNT), a provider of solutions for application and network performance management, announced that it has completed the acquisition of Clarus Systems, Inc., a privately held software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. The acquisition expands OPNET's product portfolio for application and network performance management by adding Unified Communications (UC) to the management mix.

Clarus software provides end-to-end service management for Enterprise Voice over IP (VoIP), Unified Communications, and TelePresence video. Clarus's suite, ClarusIPC Plus+, maximizes service performance and availability through automated testing, performance monitoring, configuration management, and business intelligence reporting. Clarus's customers include Global 100 enterprises in financial services, healthcare, energy, communications, as well as system integrators, and managed service providers.

Marc Cohen, OPNET Chairman and CEO, added, "Unified Communications is important to our customers as the workplace is becoming more distributed. There is an innate expectation in enterprises that voice services should be flawless and always available. However, when these services are implemented over a converged network, the only way to meet this requirement is with a powerful management solution that is able to comprehensively test, monitor, and troubleshoot the entire infrastructure and its configuration. ClarusIPC is unique in its ability to address these requirements. We are excited about expanding our capabilities in this area and look forward to introducing the Clarus offerings to our customer base. Furthermore, the new solution OPNET is acquiring is ideally suited for delivery via partners and managed service providers, and we expect it to perform well in our expanding channel program."

Alain Cohen, OPNET President and CTO, stated, "Voice and video are increasingly becoming integrated into business applications, and teleconferencing is providing enormous cost savings by reducing the need for enterprise travel. These are among the factors driving a strong need for UC management capabilities. ClarusIPC is the only solution on the market combining pre-deployment, continuous testing, production monitoring, help-desk capabilities, and business analytics. ClarusIPC's centralized, efficient management approach provides broad visibility without requiring widespread placement of probes throughout the enterprise. The solution is complementary with OPNET's real-time monitoring of signaling as well as voice and video quality. We are confident that the combination provides the most complete UC monitoring solution on the market today."

Brendan F. Reidy, Clarus Systems' Chairman and CEO added, "We are proud to become part of the OPNET Technologies portfolio of application and network performance management solutions. The combination of OPNET and Clarus provides our clients and partners with the most comprehensive suite of converged network offerings in the market. OPNET's vision and impressive product portfolio, combined with our expertise in Unified Communications will continue to ensure our customers have the highest quality end user experience possible."

"IP voice and video communications are becoming a mainstay in today's converged IT environments," said Jim Frey, Managing Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates. "With the convergence of the delivery plane comes a parallel demand to converge both planning and operations from a management tools and practices perspective. By adding the Clarus Systems VoIP and videoconferencing management tools to its substantial existing network and application management portfolio, OPNET is expanding the breadth, depth, and completeness of the solutions it can offer and closing the loop for an increasingly critical category of IT services."

Tags: clarus systems, conferencing, management, opnet, performance, telepresence, unified communications, video, voip Related tags: unified communications, clarus systems, application network, performance management, opnet technologies, management