On Wednesday, videoconferencing specialist Polycom (PLCM) announced it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase privately-held Sentri, "a leading provider of advanced services with expertise in Microsoft technologies (such as Microsoft Lync™, SharePoint and Office 365), UC&C, video collaboration, cloud services and networking." The purchase price is said to be "less than $10 million," and the transaction is expected to close in Q1 2013.
In a statement on the acquisition, Polycom cited Sentri's "deep expertise integrating Microsoft Lync with Polycom solutions" as a key reason it wanted to own the company. As the company explained:
Polycom has a portfolio of more than 40 video and voice products that interoperate with Lync, and the majority of customers choose Polycom and Microsoft over other vendors for a complete UC&C solution.
Citing a Gartner research report, Polycom noted that the global market for video collaboration services is already valued at $1.6 billion, and could grow as much as 21% to $2.94 billion by 2016.
Polycom shares are nonetheless down today, closing off 2.2%, at $10.93.