Cisco has reached an agreement to acquire FineGround Networks for $70m in cash and stock options.

FineGround develops appliances that speed up applications delivered through a network. The company claims to deliver a 90 per cent reduction in bandwidth and server usage, while increasing user response times fivefold.

"This acquisition further enhances Cisco's strategy to converge application acceleration, security and a highly available network infrastructure seamlessly in the data centre," said Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Security Technology Group.

FineGround's technology is set to be integrated into Cisco's future network appliances.

The acquisition is the fifth by Cisco this year. The company earlier acquired Sipura Technology, Airespace and TopSpin.

Cisco promised last year to accelerate the rate at which it launched new products, and said that acquisitions would be one of the means of accomplishing that goal.