Although cloud services such as Slack Inc.’s have come to dominate the conversation around business communications, they constitute only one element of an expansive market. Companies also spend billions of dollars every year on hardware to help their employees collaborate remotely, an area on track to see some consolidation.

Plantronics Inc., a leading maker of business headsets, late Wednesday announced that it has inked a deal to acquire fellow communications equipment maker Polycom Inc. for $2 billion.

The price tag is the about the same as what current Polycom owner Siris Capital Group LLC paid to buy the company two years ago. It breaks down to $948 million in cash, $358 million worth of Plantronics shares and $690 million in debt. Polycom investors are set to own 16 percent of the combined firm after the deal’s expected completion in the third quarter.

The acquisition will enable Plantronics to expand its headset portfolio with a line of popular conferencing phones and videoconferencing hardware. Polycom ships about 2.5 million communications devices every year, with a large portion of the demand coming from organizations that use Microsoft Corp.’s Skype for Business.

The company also provides various software services alongside its hardware. Polycom has a videoconferencing platform that works across desktops, mobile devices and browsers, along with a suite of collaboration tools for sharing documents during calls. It also provides an analytics service that lets companies understand how their communications devices are used.

Polycom generated an operating income of $183.1 million on $1.1 billion in revenues during the last fiscal year. Plantronics reported a $82.6 million profit and sales of $881 million in the same period. Thanks to the acquisition, the combined company expects to achieve annual cost savings of $75 million within 12 months of completing the deal.

Siris Capital partners Frank Baker and Daniel Moloney are set to join the Plantronics board as part of the transaction.

Image: Platronics