Newly installed SeaChange CEO Raghu Rau has signaled the potential sale of On Demand Group (ODG) as the company sheds its Media Services division to concentrate on the software business.
London-based ODG specialises in the aggregation, content and service management of VOD services and has successfully managed VOD and pay-per-view services for major cable and telco operators including Virgin Media in the UK, SFR in France, Kabel BW and Unity Media in Germany, OTE in Greece, and du in Dubai.
In an investor call Rau said an important part of the company strategy was to shift SeaChange towards a pure software company following the sale of its server and storage business. “We are also actively engaged in the potential divestiture of our media services business, with exciting growth prospects, but not a part of our core business strategy”.
In its end of year financials, SeaChange reported total revenues of $197.7 million, some $4 million down on 2011. “With intense focus on execution, we ended fiscal 2012 with our strongest quarterly operating performance of the year,” said Rau. “Our focus in fiscal 2013 is on the execution of our strategy to transform the Company into a pure-play software provider, lowering our overall cost structure, delivering industry leading, next generation solutions and achieving superior financial results.”
Rau described the Cisco purchase of NDS as a significant acquisition. He said traditional hardware vendors were looking at software companies because it adds value that has been hollowed out of the hardware, arguing that it validated SeaChange’s own strategy.
