Oct 1, 2000 12:00 PM, MOBILE RADIO TECHNOLOGY STAFF

Aether Systems, Owings Mills, MD, signed a letter of intent in August to acquire Cerulean Technology, Marlbor-ough, MA.

The acquisition allows Aether, a provider of wireless data products and services, to enter new vertical markets in the public sector by delivering products to the mobile government marketplace. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the market for mobile data products across the government will represent an estimated 3.7 million users and more than $1 billion in products and services by 2003.

The letter of intent provides for a purchase price of $150 million, with as much as 50% payable in Aether stock.

"Aether looks for three valuable resources in its merger and acquisition strategy: entry into new vertical markets, a recurring revenue model and engineering bandwidth. The acquisition of Cerulean brings us all three of these crucial elements," said Dave Oros, chairman of Aether Systems.

More than 45,000 users at 700 public safety agencies use Cerulean's Packetcluster family of mobile applications, according to a Cerulean press release. Cerulean now plans to offer hand-held products and Web-based services.

"As the public safety mobile market evolves beyond in-vehicle laptops to hand-held devices, more customers are looking for packaged systems that incorporate the application software, devices, air time and ongoing support in a turnkey solution for a monthly fee," said Bob Badavas, chief executive officer of Cerulean.

"As part of Aether, Cerulean will be able to more easily meet this demand by offering hosted data services, managed through Aether's network operations center," Badavas said.

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