Vizrt, a Norwegian-based provider of professional graphics systems for television, has signed a letter of intent to acquire Ardendo, a developer of media asset management software based in Stockholm, for $23 million. The deal is expected to close by the end of April.
Ardendo's range of media asset management address digital archiving, ingest, transcoding, browsing and system integration media management for broadcasters moving to IT-based production and archiving and is expected to greatly enhance and expand the capability of Vizrt's product range and allow it to address new markets including mobile video. In September 2005, Ardendo purchased a 19 percent interest in Adactus, a Norwegian company specializing in using the MPEG-21 standard to deliver video content to mobile phones.
"By marrying ingest, archiving, editing, transcoding, playout and newsroom components from Ardendo with real-time graphics components, mobile distribution and mobile visualization tools from Vizrt, we're establishing a company that can provide the world's first complete multi-platform production solution," said Bjarne Berg, CEO of Vizrt. "This will enable content producers to truly create once, use multiple times and distribute everywhere."
Ardendo recently was hired to develop a digital asset management system for BBC's new Broadcast Centre in London and has partnerships with IBM, SGI and Scheduall, among others.
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