Networking giant Cisco Systems continued its run of software  acquisitions with its announcement Thursday that it plans to buy Latigent, a maker of call center reporting software

Cisco's move to acquire Latigent is the latest in a flurry of acquisitions marking a shift in focus to customer applications.

“There has been a lot of convergence in our market in the last few years, and it is that maturing of the market that sort of explains Cisco’s acquisition of Latigent,” said Ryan Hollenbeck, vice president of global marketing for Verint, a data analysis company.

In February, Cisco acquired Reactivity for $135 million and Five Across for an undisclosed sum. In March, the company acquired WebEx for $2.9 billion and Utah Street Networks for an undisclosed amount. In April, it invested in Russian startup Ozon, and in May it acquired BroadWare Technologies, both for undisclosed amounts.

Financial terms of the Latigent deal were not disclosed.

Latigent makes products that port call center data into reports so that executives and other staff can improve customer service or glean insights from customer behavior.

“Latigent made the reports very user-friendly,” Saddletree Research analyst Paul Stockford said.

Latigent, which specializes in extracting data from Cisco and Avaya communications products, is one of about a dozen firms in the sector. Many such as AIM Technology, HardMetrics, Informiam, and Merced Systems are smaller and privately held.

The first wave of startups came with ways of extracting data from call center communications systems, Mr. Hollenbeck said. The second and more mature wave has to do with formatting the data into reports that can be useful to management teams.

“Reporting has been a sore spot for contact centers so what you see here is Cisco buying a company that will help it present customer care data in a simplified way,” he said.

Cisco executives said the company plans to integrate Latigent's products into its own customer contact technology and eventually have those products communicate with customer relationship management applications.