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One of the best ways to rapidly expand in business is to buy an established business and go forward from there. That's a point not lost on VTech, who recently concluded efforts to purchase Germany's Snom Technology AG, a move which should give a company that's already a technological powerhouse a little extra juice in the market, and augment a currently-potent lineup with some even better gear.

VTech is already well-known in the field for both its line of cordless phones and its line of educational products, which makes acquiring a company known for enterprise-grade voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephones a reasonable enough strike. The agreement was first struck back in October, with the establishment of a binding definitive agreement that let VTech acquire 100 percent of share capital. The transaction was subsequently completed a month to the day later, with regulatory matters effectively settled, and that made Snom Technology AG an “indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of VTech.”

Immediately, one benefit springs to mind. We know that VTech is a name to conjure with when it comes to cordless phones. We'll leave aside VTech's presence in the educational technology market because it doesn't really apply here. We also know that Snom is a major player in VoIP phones, so it might well be that VTech is looking to augment its own presence in this market. It's clear that VoIP technology has been gaining ground over the last few years, so it wouldn't be out of line to suggest that VTech was looking for a way to augment its capability in that market. With Snom's product line and customer base under VTech's control now, that could give it just the boost it wanted. Better yet, it could likewise offer its current line of cordless phone products to Snom customers and potentially get a shot in the arm cash-wise that way. There's even a possibility that VTech could combine the systems and make cordless VoIP phones, which would have an extra added value that may not have been offered to Snom customers so well.

There are a lot of possibilities in this deal, and it will be exciting to see just which possibilities actually come to light. VTech's likely made a smart move here, and could well take a major new role in IP phone technology as a result.