Aastra R&D outlays soar following key acquisition

Aastra Technologies Ltd boosted its R&D spending to $21.9 million or 10% of sales in Q1/09 as the company benefits from its acquisition of the Ericsson Enterprise portfolio one year ago. That compares to R&D outlays of $13.7 million in Q1/08, an increase of 59.9%. Based in Concord ON, Astra attributes the jump in R&D expenditures to its Ericsson acquisition and says it will continue to streamline its R&D investments and "explore synergy opportunities across its product lines". Aastra carries a full range of open-standard and traditional communications networking products including terminals, systems and applications....