Citrix buys traffic optimisation company Bytemobile

Citrix Systems has acquired privately-owned Bytemobile, which develops data and video optimisation products for mobile network operators, the company said on Thursday.

Today, a plethora of vendors are offering products that aim to help mobile operators better handle the growing traffic volumes in their networks, and Citrix wants in on the action.

Buying Bytemobile gives it a foothold in the core infrastructure of more than 130 mobile operators in 60 countries, the company said.

The two companies already had a partnership that combined Bytemobile's Smart Capacity technology with the Citrix NetScaler products, which offer features such as load balancing, data compression, content caching and SSL acceleration.

Smart Capacity is used for video and web optimisation, as well as traffic management and bandwidth throttling.

For example, the web optimisation tool can cut internet and mobile application traffic by 30 percent to 35 percent, using a wide range of techniques, as well as caching, according to Bytemobile. This includes traffic generated by the automatic download of software updates, it said.

After the deal closes, Bytemobile will continue as an independent product group within Citrix's cloud networking division.

The terms of the acquisition were not announced, but the deal has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close during the third quarter.

Previously this year Citrix acquired Podio - a developer of a cloud-based software platform for project management and collaboration - and Virtual Computer, which will help the company develop its XenClient hypervisor.