Avocent Corporation was an information-technology products manufacturer headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. Avocent formed in 2000 from the merger of the world's two largest manufacturers of KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) equipment, Apex and Cybex Computer Products Corporation. As of August 2006, the company employed more than 1,800 people worldwide.
On October 6, 2009, it was announced that Emerson Electric would buy Avocent for $1.2 billion USD. The tender was finalized on December 11, resulting in Avocent becoming part of Emerson Network Power, a division of Emerson Electric.[1] On August 2, 2016, Emerson announced an agreement to sell Network Power to Platinum Equity.[2] Emerson Network Power was rebranded as Vertiv.[3]
Avocent's product development has spanned three eras:
the growth of the analog KVM switch – paralleling the growth of server architecture in the data center[when?]
the growth of the digital KVM switch – enabling the remote control of geographically dispersed data-centers
the diversification and “management” phase (revolving around the acquisition of LANDesk (2006) and Touchpaper software (2008) and the capabilities they provide)
