Cisco Systems Inc. has acquired Dynamicsoft Inc., best known for their Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) product line, for about $55 million in cash, including the assumption of about $3.8 million in debt.

dynamicsoft has always had a strong SIP core offering, as well as support for presence in 2G, 2.5G, and 3G networks, which is becoming increasingly important.

The real story behind the story is that Cisco still has been using their proprietary SCCP protocol (a version of MGCP – Media Gateway Control Protocol) rather than the industry standard SIP protocol.

While Cisco claims their lack of true SIP support hasn't hurt them, I say "yeah right". I've had at least 10 IP-Phone vendors contact me and "diss" Cisco for their lack of SIP support.

Well, it looks like Cisco is looking to shore up their SIP support by acquiring one of the leading SIP software vendors on the market. Could this mean Cisco will finally drop SCCP in favor of SIP? or at least offer 100% SIP support in their product line? If so, I say, "It's about damn time!". Secondly, I wonder... "Is Cisco in a buying frenzy?" After all, just 4 days ago, Cisco acquired NetSolve, a leading provider of network monitoring and IT infrastructure management services for businesses and they even have IP Telephony monitoring capabilities. Full release here: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2004/corp_090904.html

I'll keep you posted if indeed Cisco is on a buying spree once again...