Cisco added 40 new employees to its worldwide cast of 34,000 with the announcement of its FineGround acquisition. The deal will close by July and was for $70 million in cash and options. The privately-held FineGround produces network optimization technology, specifically to speed Web-based applications by optimizing bandwidth and reducing latency across the Web.

The FineGround acquisition is said to resemble those of Peribit and Redline, purchased recently for a total of $500 million. These acquisitions, combined with Cisco's purchase of Sipura Technology, an internet telephony company,  shows signs of the company returning to its late 90s forms of small, serial acquisitions of companies that can enhance its product line or add missing pieces to its overall mission of being the network technology vendor of choice to the world.

"The FineGround acquisition further enhances Cisco's strategy to converge application acceleration, security and a highly available network infrastructure seamlessly in the data center," said Jayshree Ullal, general manager of security technology at Cisco.  "FineGround augments Cisco's leadership in content and security products enabling customers to accelerate application response time