Telestream has partnered with Fortive to acquire Tektronix Video.
The financial details of the deal have not been announced, but the transaction means Telestream’s parent company Genstar Capital has entered into a co-ownership agreement with Fortive. Current Telestream CEO Scott Puopolo will remain CEO of the combined company.
Tektronix’s video test, monitoring and quality assurance solutions for the broadcast and digital media markets will be integrated into Telestream. Products that are part of the “integration” are the Tektronix’s SDI waveform monitors, test signal sync generators, MPEG stream analysers, picture quality analysers, IP waveform monitors that are sold under the Prism brand, plus the Century brand and file QC.
Speaking exclusively to TVBEurope, Puopolo said that employees currently based at Tektronix Video will “for the most part” transfer to become Telestream employees. “Because this is a ‘carve-out’, we actually need to build some additional operational infrastructure, so in addition to the people transitioning over, we will be doing a fair amount of hiring in a number of functions that will make up some of the shared services functions that had been provided by the broader Tektronix organisation.”
According to Poupolo, Telestream plans to keep Tektronix’s Beaverton, Oregon location. “We’re currently in a Tektronix secured facility so we would have to move those individuals,” he said. “But the good news is that the Tektronix campus actually has other buildings and has space available. We’re very excited about the talent that we’re acquiring. We think of this as not only a fantastic portfolio augmentation, but it’s also a talent and innovation play for us.”
Puopolo continued: “So much of what we’re looking to do here is accelerate innovation and by bringing these two companies together we think we absolutely have the best core portfolio in the waveform monitoring business.
“With the existing strength of Tek Video and combining the stream monitoring capabilities and innovation talent with what we have on the IQ side, and then the file quality control that we are able to combine and build on with our Vidchecker product, we think we’ve got the best technology platforms, as well as the best innovation talent to really accelerate. Frankly, we see this as being incredibly positive for our customers. They they want us to move quickly, they want us to innovate proactively. We are going to have the financial, the product portfolio, and the personnel to really make that happen.”
According to Puopolo, Telestream is excited to be partnering with Fortive on the acquisition: “They recognise that Tektronix Video has been sitting a bit apart because Tektronix itself is not really a video company. The idea of bringing Tek Video to Telestream allows them, I think, better return on their investment because they’re inside a video company. They recognise obviously the historical strengths that we have both in media processing as well as monitoring.”
“Fortive is a fantastic company with a terrific history of strong operational effectiveness and strong business processes that really get the most value out of the businesses that they operate,” Puopolo continued. “I want to leverage that perspective and insight to continue to help Telestream be as effective as possible. In addition, they are very well connected because of the size of the company and the various industries that they serve. They’re also a great resource in terms of other technology contacts and frankly, strategic perspective.”
Telestream has been quite active in acquiring companies over the past couple of years. Puopolo admits this might not be the last announcement they have to make: “We are really focused on doubling down on our core media processing, monitoring and quality areas. We’ve been aggressively updating and refreshing and bringing the product portfolio to what I would characterise as the cutting edge. And so that’s all good. But the way that I think we’re going to continue to be able to move that pathway forward aggressively is with M&A,” he explained.
“I never want to be in a position where I’m competing with my customers. What I’m focused on is investing heavily in being the de facto standard for workflow automation, media processing, in all aspects of quality.”
Puopolo said he wanted to underscore that Telestream’s acquisition of Ineoquest in March 2017 “was our very first clear statement that we want to be in the QoE, QoS business.”
“We believe that the combination of both file and live, workflow automation and media processing with QoS and QoE is a killer combination and that is and will remain our strategy. In the future, look for us to continue to bolster our core positions, in the core markets that we that we operate in today. You’re not going to see Telestream get into the service provider business or anything like that. We are focused on being the de facto standard in the areas that we currently compete and all the work that we do both in terms of innovation and acquisition is driven by that.”
“We believe this industry is ripe for more scale out of the players that operate in our marketplace and what better company than Telestream to lead that charge?”
