/> “Addressing a clear customer need to simplify testing and increase productivity is an important part of our vision. It has been the driver for our successful partnership with Fanfare over the past two years,” said Bill Burns, CEO of Spirent. “Bringing Fanfare’s software expertise and its innovative iTest technology to Spirent will enable us to realise that vision much more quickly, including an on-going commitment to an open, standards-based approach.”

Convergence, in multiple forms, is driving exponential growth in the complexity and scale required for successful testing of IP and Ethernet devices, networks and services, creating a clear need to streamline the product and services development process. An integrated and collaborative test automation approach is becoming an increasingly important business requirement to innovate in this market. Combining the two companies’ products and services will result in a common automated test experience and a common platform that brings together engineers, technologies and processes.

“Over the past few years we’ve built an extremely successful partnership with Spirent,” said Tom Ryan, CEO of Fanfare. “This acquisition is a logical way to deliver even more value to customers, through Spirent’s scale and global reach and through seamless integration with test solutions, including market-leading solutions from Spirent.”

Spirent and Fanfare have played leading roles in an industry initiative to move beyond vendor-specific, proprietary approaches to test automation. As founding members of the Network Test Automation Forum (“NTAF”), both companies have made major contributions to the development of industry standards that promote interoperability of commercial testing tools and test infrastructure.

Spirent will continue its support for standardization through NTAF, and the acquisition of Fanfare will accelerate its ability to bring to market commercial implementations of new standards as they emerge. This commitment provides a clear path forward for customers that are applying test automation in both Spirent and multi-vendor equipment environments.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to complete on or about 16 February 2011.