Cisco's Acquisition of Inlet Technologies Complete

Supports Cisco's Videoscape Strategy

By Neil Zawacki
Updated: April 20, 2011

Cisco's Acquisition of Inlet Technologies Complete

On March 14, 2011, Cisco announced to the public that they had successfully managed to acquire Inlet Technologies. They had declared their intent to purchase the company over a month ago, and the move is generally seen as a means to bolster their Videoscape TV platform. They reportedly paid in the vicinity of $95 million to secure the existing stock of the company.

Cisco Videoscape is a consumer product that combines pay TV with online video and on-demand providers. It uses a simplified visual interface to stream video content to users and has the capacity to interact with social media like Facebook and Twitter. The technology has also been specifically designed to work with mobile devices and homes that have more than one television or computer.

The acquisition of Inlet Technologies should provide Cisco a smoother method to deliver this type of content to their customer base. Inlet Technologies is a major source of Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) technology, which is used by many companies to stream video and sound files over data networks. ABR also has the ability to adjust the quality of video content when there are potential issues with the bandwidth.

Cisco has stated that they will work with customers to honor any existing purchasing and maintenance agreements with Inlet Technologies. They will also do what they can to ensure that Service Providers maintain access to the computer software and products that they need to properly function.
 

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