Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO) has also been quite active lately from an M&A standpoint, and its most recent acquisition was announced on Tuesday: Sipura Technology.  The transaction, valued at $68 million (a cash and stock options combo) solidifies the Linksys wireless division (Linksys was another acquisition made in 2003 geared towards the SOHO/small business and home markets).  Cisco had been OEMing Sipura's ATAs since 2004; analog phones and fax machines can be connected to these ATAs to create a phone line over a broadband connection (e.g. DSL).  Om Malik had an interesting post on this transaction (including the past Komodo story).  Sipura is the third company bought by Cisco this year (after Airespace and Topspin).

Besides the PEC deal, Nortel (NYSE:NT) also got a lot of press (particularly across the Ocean) on a rumor that it has been linked with Siemens on some cooperation deals involving both wireline and wireless products lines.  According to an article in German magazine Der Spiegel, executives from both companies met "secretely" near the Munich Airport to discuss product partnerships and maybe even some co-development (ed. note: well, the Genie is out of the bottle by now, but one always wonders how the press gets this info - which company was this info leaked from?).  Obviously, many are thinking about a possible spin-off of the German vendor's money losing handset division, but I doubt that Nortel would make a play there.  However, perhaps a wireless equipment play could be a remote possibility (Siemens next-gen wireless sales globally trail only Ericsson and Nokia), as could a VoIP-related deal (Nortel holds the edge over Siemens here, with almost a quarter of the global share, compared to roughly 10 percent by Siemens). 

The current consolidation in the carrier space, and the difficulties that Euro vendors have achieving a higher penetration on this side of the Atlantic (and vice-versa) help fuel the rumor mill of such deals. But, speaking about Nortel specifically, the company needs to continue on the path of building partnerships (such as the ones that it already has with LG Electronics in Korea, Putian in China, in addition to other smaller arrangements in the US and India) in order to boost its performance in the highly competitive telecom space.