EditShare has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Shift Media, a cloud-native video solution provider that helps creators manage, present, and collaborate on their high value projects.
The combined business will operate as EditShare, with Shift Media’s well-known products, MediaSilo, Wiredrive, and Screeners.com, becoming part of the EditShare corporate brand.
Ramu Potarazu, Shift Media’s CEO, will lead the combined company under the EditShare banner following the close of the transaction; current EditShare CEO Conrad Clemson will leave the business to pursue other opportunities.
Speaking exclusively to TVBEurope, Potarazu says the decision to merge the two companies will give the new entity a global reach, and a broader solution set across on-premise, cloud and hybrid offerings.
“Shift Media’s cloud-native, SaaS product suite provides EditShare a dynamic offering in other areas of the video production workflow while EditShare provides Shift’s products a global reseller network in a variety of new industries,” he adds. “It’s a great opportunity to serve our current customers more broadly, and bring our solutions to new customers.”
The joint business will enable the new EditShare to operate more efficiently internally while reducing the number of vendors customers have to work with to get their jobs done more effectively, added Potarazu. “The market has spoken: video creatives want an open ecosystem provider that will work with different tools for different jobs, and that’s what we will offer. Many other vendors try to lock you into their ecosystem – we want to unlock creativity by working with every vendor possible.
“Bringing these products together gives our joint customer base the ability to work with one open vendor for storage, collaboration, asset management, presentation and screening capabilities,” he says. It continues to provide customers with choice, whether they want to work within their own facilities, remotely or completely in the cloud.”
Staff at the legacy EditShare and Shift Media organisations will merge functions and operations over the coming weeks, while the company make decisions as to how roles and responsibilities are distributed to ensure continued delivery for customers and a basis for innovation in the future, says Potarazu.
“A key focus of innovation for EditShare is what we call ‘Create Amazing Everywhere’. We believe that creativity should not be boxed in and collaboration enables our customers to work seamlessly. The SaaS platform for the Shift Media products provides an excellent basis to build out cloud-enabled innovations whilst our experience in on-premise and hybrid workflows will allow our customers to benefit from our joint innovations however they want to work.”
