Citrix, a software company known for its collaboration tools, announced back in April that it would be entering into an agreement to acquire Grasshopper Group. But the deal has waited until the second quarter of 2015 to close. With the acquisition now official, company officials discuss the reasons for the deal and plans for the future.
Grasshopper is a cloud-based communications service. The company provides a virtual phone system specifically designed for entrepreneurs and businesses that don’t operate from a traditional office, especially for those with employees working from multiple locations.
Don Schiavone, COO of Grasshopper says in the company’s announcement about the deal:
“Our teams share the same vision and culture, making Citrix the perfect home as we grow. We remain committed to our original mission, and will continue to provide a great virtual phone system that empowers entrepreneurs, regardless of their size. With Citrix’s resources, we’ll be able to provide you with even more services to help you start, run, and grow your businesses.”
With Grasshopper, business owners can choose a toll free or local number, record a custom main greeting, and create customized extensions to forward calls among other services. Because Grasshopper’s service is cloud-based there is no hardware to purchase or software to install.
Business owners can use their existing phone/smartphone. Voicemails and other messages can be managed online or from your phone.
Citrix has said the deal with Grasshopper will further the company’s expansion of cloud-based collaborations for small to medium enterprises. Chris Battles, Vice President of Citrix says in the announcement:
“With the acquisition we expand the breadth of our communication and collaboration solutions for small businesses, including GoToMeeting, GoToTraining, GoToWebinar, ShareFile, and OpenVoice.”
There were no further details about the terms of the acquisition disclosed.
Image: Grasshopper
Aira Bongco
Glad to know that the qcquisition is working well for them. It is a tricky game after all. You’ll never know if it will really work once it is tested.
This is a smart deal on both sides. Citrix gets a new technology that appeals to the SMB market and Grasshopper gets the big-company support of an established leader.
I still remember the chocolate covered grasshoppers… 😉
Taylor Aldredge
Thanks for the write-up, Tabby. Happy to provide more insight if you’re interested. Lots of insight we can provide for small business owners since we bootstrapped Grasshopper for 12 years to an acquisition.
Napoleon
This story proves the American dream for business and startups is alive and well – but not for the reasons you think. I worked for these guys and you couldn’t find a company that made more drastic and dumb mistakes in everything from marketing to operations. They worked hard (at least during the times when they were doing things right) but they got EXTREMELY lucky. You can’t dismiss their payout but they are – in my opinion – completely undeserving from any angle.