Arris on Friday closed its acquisition of the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom, an agreement that wraps up about two weeks after Broadcom completed its merger with Brocade.
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Dan Rabinovitsj, previously COO of Ruckus Wireless, now heads a new Arris Enterprise Networks business segment. Ruckus Networks, an Arris company, will operate as a dedicated business under the Enterprise Networks unit. About 1,700 Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch Business employees are joining Arris.
“Given the cult-like following around the Ruckus brand, we didn’t want to see that disappear for obvious reasons,” Rabinovitsj said in a video that Arris posted with him and Arris CEO Bruce McClelland. “What we’re doing with the brand actually creates exactly the right set-up, so going forward people will be associating …this is still the Ruckus brand in the enterprise market.”
The acquisition plunges Arris, which had been offering Ruckus products under a previous reseller agreement, more deeply into the wireless and mobile technology and services sector at a time when many of its top cable customers, including Comcast and Charter Communications, are likewise expanding into those service areas.
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Arris announced its proposed $800 million acquisition of then-Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business in January. Closure of that deal hinged on the completion of the Broadcom-Brocade combination.
Arris will host a call at 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 14 to provide an update on Ruckus Wireless.
Early, on the big priorities following the closure of the deal will focus on employees as well as Ruckus’s customers and channel partners, McClelland noted in the video.
Connecting with employees, he said, is key in “making sure we tap into the enthusiasm, making sure they understand what the strategy is, what we’re trying to accomplish, how they fit into that equation.”
