TANDBERG Television agreed to acquire SkyStream, a supplier of IP video delivery solutions, for $80 million in cash and TANDBERG Television shares. The transaction is expected to close in April 2006.
SkyStream's product line includes its high density Mediaplex-20 and iPlex switched digital video headends for MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AVC encoding and transcoding. The platforms are used by IPTV operators in Asia, Europe and the US.
SkyStream's customers include Safeway, Reuters, GlobeCast (a division of France Telecom), EchoStar Communications, Comcast, BT Broadcast Services, Belgacom, Clear Channel, Convergent Media, Eutelsat, Gilat, New Skies Satellites, ViaSat, Loral Skynet, EMS, Rural Telephone, CCTV, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Telecom Italia.
SkyStream employs approximately 100 people across North America and in the UK, China and Korea.
TANDBERG TV said SkyStream's IPTV solutions and market presence in the Telco regional headend business is a natural extension to its central headend IPTV systems and global Tier 1 customer base. In addition, SkyStream's zBand content delivery software for push on-demand services is complementary to the TANDBERG N2 On-Demand solutions and gives the company a complete 'push and pull' on-demand offering.
"The sands are shifting in the digital media market and there is an inevitable level of industry consolidation taking place. In a marketplace with a number of acquisition opportunities to pursue, we chose to acquire SkyStream because of the company's best-in-class technologies and its strong culture of building revenue and profitable growth," says Eric Cooney, President and CEO of TANDBERG Television.
http://www.tandbergtv.comhttp://www.skystream.com
- Skystream posted 2005 revenues of $30.7 million, up 43% on 2004, and with a gross margin of 65%. The company is based in Sunnyvale, California.
