It's a bit of a shocker when two highly competitive rivals merge: The acquisition is awfully cheap for iPass of their most vocal competitor at $76.5 million, a relatively high premium to their current stock price. iPass has focused on corporate roaming with end-point security through an increasingly full-featured program that handles connections to dial-up, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and cell networks, but also enforces policies on using firewalls, VPNs, and anti-virus/anti-spyware programs. GoRemote, in the past, has emphasized a three-pronged approach of remote offices, teleworkers, and roaming employees. Both companies have seen stock doldrums as they transition from dial-up to Wi-Fi for access.
The deal must be approved by regulators, but in a highly competitive access business, its unlikely that the GoRemote acquisition would provoke undue scrutiny.
Oh, and iPass also says they have 35,000 live hotspots worldwide. A significant number were integrated into their aggregated network in the second half of 2005, the press release says, include nearly 10,000 from KT in South Korea and 2,500 from Japan Telecom.