Cisco Systems Inc. needs to beef up its software business. There is no better time.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that Cisco recently made an offer to acquire security and business intelligence software provider Splunk for more than $20 billion. The two companies apparently aren’t in active talks now, so it is far from assured that a deal will get done. But that price would represent a premium of at least 10% to Splunk’s last closing value, making it three times the size of Cisco’s largest deal to date. Splunk shares rose more than 8% Monday morning, while Cisco’s slipped by more than 1%.
