PacketVideo, the only business that US WiMAX chip company Nextwave owned which had real revenues, has been sold to Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo . It will acquire the remaining 65% equity which it does not hold having bought 35% of the company a year ago for $45.5 million. The consideration will be $111.6 million, which goes into the pockets of the bankrupt Nextwave and the deal should close by September 30. PacketVideo does what it says in the name, it delivers video, in packets, to and from portable devices. It has helped a number of major organizations add video to handsets, and helped design the software stack in video based satellite radios for Sirius XM in the past.
Logitech this week added Logitech Alert, a cheap digital video security system for keeping track of your home and its valuables, wherever you are. Logitech has always dabbled in cameras and PC add-ons and it seems a natural extension as this part of the market heats up. Called the Logitech Alert 750i Master System with its weatherproof 750e an outdoor version which has night vision, they both produce video which can be viewed from anywhere on the internet. Both systems can use motion triggered filming and hold local storage of video on 2GB MicroSD cards. There will be an Android and a Blackberry App for that too and prices kick off at $300.
US Wi-Fi chip specialist Atheros second quarter results were a record at 238.2 million, up 11% sequentially and 112% over this time last year.
Net income was $29.7 million up $10 million sequentially and compares to a small net loss a year ago. It has $508.4 million in cash. Atheros has shipped 500 million WiFi chipsets and recently bought a PON company and said it would shortly ship a tri-band WiGig chip.
US researcher In-Stat says that HD DVR set top revenue will rise by 61% by 2014. Betting on HD going up and up is never difficult, it’s all it has ever done. In-Stat says total global digital set top shipments will fall 10% by 2014, but will continue the drift to HD and to DVR (up 57%). Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe will continue to see overall increases in set top shipments over the next 5 years.
News Corp this week said that it had arranged for Sky Deutschland to get €340 million of new finance. The money is partly a rights offering backed by News Corp, partly redeemable convertible loans from News Corp, which could take it beyond a 49.9% holding in the company, but only if New Corp agrees to this. In other words if no-one wants the shares, then News Corp can turn some of them down if it wants, or turn down the loan conversion.
US book chain Barnes and Noble said this week that it will seek ‘strategic alternatives’ which is investor speak for ‘will someone raise my stock value.’ By attracting offers to buy the company, a true market value may be set on it by outsiders, but in the absence of that Leonard Riggio, the company’s founder and largest stockholder, said he plans to buy back the company out of public hands with other investors. The likely outcome could be anything ‘ Barnes and Noble is a respected property and might attract bidders. How about News Corp buying it and using the Nook as a means to distribute the Wall Street Journal. Unlikely, since we think Rupert Murdoch already owns enough ‘old world’ businesses suffering at the hands of the internet.
While on the subject of News Corp the UK DTH service it runs, BSkyB, is about to face further interference from the regulator Ofcom. It plans to refer its movie channels to the Competition Commission. The likely outcome will be that a Wholesale Must Offer obligation will end up on these channels like the one on its Sky Sports channels. Sky has such a huge pay TV outlet over all of Europe that it can undermine most attempts to put a movie channel together and force consumers to go to its DTH services in the UK, Germany and Italy. Ofcom says it is worried about the limited pool of genuine premium content, the exploitation window and the potential for bundling SVOD rights in with linear channels, something Sky has yet to try.
US DRM specialist Widevine said this week that Hisense Electric Co, a large Chinese TV company, will use Widevine’s adaptive streaming and DRM for its Internet-connected TV viewing. Hisense is a leading LCD TV brand in China.
Seachange International subsidiary On Demand Group will offer a subscription VoD channel over South Afria’s Vodacom cellular streaming service. Vodacom has only recently begun streaming initiatives, as it has take a while for 3G penetration in South Africa to take off, after a late start, even in the major cities. On Demand Group already has studio and TV partnerships to provide popular US TV series and has rights to a library of music videos too. The price will be R75 a month ($10) or R20 a week ($2.75). We imagine this will use the Mobix Interactive technology that Seachange acquired in 2008.
US encoder maker Envivio, best known for its mobile TV installations, said this week it has delivered a complete DTH video headend for Argentina’s Red Intercable, an aggregator supplying 240 cable operators in Argentina. The project features end-to-end integration by Envivio and has enabled Red Intercable to augment its existing cable services by blanketing the entire country with high fidelity HD and SD TV and on demand services delivered via satellite.