Vizrt has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire Ardendo, a developer of software that provides media asset management solutions for broadcasters, writes Fergal Ringrose.
Based in Stockholm, Ardendo offers software solutions for digital archiving, ingest, transcoding, browsing, and system integration media management for broadcasters moving to IT-based production and archiving.
Vizrt is to acquire all outstanding shares of Ardendo for $23 million (US) in an all-share transaction. The deal is expected to close no later than April 30.
Incorporating Ardendo’s range of MAM products will extend Vizrt’s own graphics-based offering to a full broadcast production system, said Director of Sales Rex Jenkins. “Ardendo have attracted the interest of many forward-thinking broadcasters to help them process and manage their content in such a way that it remains instantly accessible for re-use in other forms of programming or on other platforms.
“We’re establishing a company that will provide the world’s first complete multi-platform production system. This will enable content producers to truly create once, use many times and distribute everywhere – SD, HD, internet, interactive TV, mobile phones and podcasting.”
“Combining Ardendo and Vizrt software creates opportunities for a new class of integrated products,” said Jonas Engström, CEO of Ardendo. “In addition, the global presence of Vizrt will bring immediate benefits for sales and support of the current Ardendo product portfolio.”
Ardendo’s ingest, media management and archive solutions include ARDOME for media management and archiving; the DART ingest scheduler; the ARDCAP ingest station and play-out control; the ARDENC transcoder; and ARDEON, an entry-level archive solution.
Last September Vizrt purchased a 19% interest in Adactus, a Norwegian developer of multimedia delivery and consumption platforms based on the MPEG-21 standard, specialising in delivery of video content to mobile phones. Vizrt acquired Curious Software, makers of Curious World Maps, in February 2005.
