Cisco will acquire BNI Video, a start-up developing video control plane software for cable operators, for approximately $99 million in cash and retention-based incentives. 
BNI's platform allows video service providers to easily incorporate social networking, search, and other next-generation applications into their offerings. BNI's website says its control plane software connects content to subscribers, enabling transcoding and digital rights management, invoking quality of service to ensure the content produces the appropriate user experience, and interfacing with billing and entitlement systems to ensure that it is correctly monetized. The video control plane software and CDN manager are currently available.
Cisco said the acquisition will advance the capabilities of its own Videoscape TV platform, which allows service providers to deliver compelling video experiences to any device over any IP network.
BNI was founded in 2009 and is based in Boxborough, Mass. http://www.cisco.com http://www.bnivideo.com
- BNI is headed by Conrad Clemson, who previously served as a senior director of engineering at Motorola, which he joined in the fall of 2006 through the acquisition of Broadbus Technologies. Previously, he was senior vice president for technical operations at Broadbus from 2002-2006, and before that was vice president of engineering at Gotham Networks, and a vice president of engineering at Lucent Technologies.
In October 2010, BNI Video announced that it had raised more than $16 million from Comcast Interactive Capital, and Time Warner Cable, as well as from venture capital firms Charles River Ventures and Castile Ventures.
