Ericsson is buying the US-Israeli firm Fabrix systems, further extending its range within the TV sphere.
Fabrix has deployed scalable origin servers, cloud DVR applications and VOD expansion. The $95 million purchase follows yesterday’s announcement of a successor to the old Microsoft Mediaroom product MediaFirst. Fabrix technology is already being run by operators in North America and Europe.
Fabrix also works in the IT, surveillance, life sciences and energy industries.
“Through the acquisition we will extend our leadership in the TV media and in doing so creating another piece of the cloud for the future TV anywhere,” Ove Anebygd, vice president and head of solution area media told Broadband TV News. “What they represent is the future of TV, there’s media storage processing , cloud DVR and consumer TV. It tells us this is where the consumption is heading, so what Fabrix delivers is a component to the service we are creating alongside Mediaroom and Azuki Systems”.
Anebygd explained Ericsson had identified the features required by a TV system leading it to cloud based storage and functionality.
It also is another indicator within Ericsson – and others – that storage is moving towards the cloud and that one benefit is a reduction in the cost of the set-top that delivers the content to the consumer.
Ram Ben-Yakir, CEO and co-founder of Fabrix Systems, said in a statement: “TV service providers, particularly those with IP delivery networks, are accelerating their network architecture investments in video optimization to deliver on the promise of TV Anywhere. Through worldwide deployments of our cloud storage and computing capabilities, we have enabled leading TV service providers to provide consumer services such as DVR through cloud-based deployments, lowering costs and enabling a more unified consumer experience in content on-demand.”
The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter, 2014 subject to customary closing conditions. Fabrix Systems will be incorporated into Business Unit Support Solutions.
