Cisco announced plans to acquire Inlet Technologies, a provider of Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) digital media processing platforms that is based in Raleigh, N.C. Cisco will pay approximately $95 million in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of Inlet. 
Inlet offer a set of encoding solutions that scale from mobile to web to high-definition. The line includes an IP input live streaming appliance, a high-density streaming solution and automated ad insertion for real-time streaming to desktop and iOS devices. During 2010, Inlet added several major broadcasters to its roster, including the BBC, ABC (Australia), Wealth TV and NBC Universal's Winter Olympics coverage.
Cisco intends to integrate Inlet Technologies into its Service Provider Video Technology Group.
"Service and content providers have a tremendous opportunity to deliver exciting video experiences as media consumption increases across mobile, desktop, and smart devices," said Enrique Rodriguez, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group. "Cisco's Videoscape platform will play a key role in reinventing the TV experience, and the acquisition of Inlet will enable our customers to leverage the network as a platform to deliver innovative video experiences to consumers on any device."
The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in the first half of calendar year 2011.
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- Intlet Technologies is headed by Don Bossi, who previously served as President and CEO of Aegis Lightwave, a leading supplier of optical and broadband network monitoring solutions.
