Vizrt to Provide World's First Complete, Multi-platform Production Solution

Vizrt, the world's leading producer of real-time 2D and true 3D graphics system for television, has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire Ardendo, a developer of software that provides complete Media Asset Management solutions for broadcasters. Based in Stockholm, Ardendo offers a range of 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 in an all-share transaction. The deal is expected to close no later than April 30, 2006 and is subject to due diligence and board approval of both companies.

Incorporating Ardendo's range of media asset management solutions will greatly extend and strengthen Vizrt's offering of products from graphics-specific to a full broadcast production system, addressing every step from ingest to visualization. "By marrying the 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—unlike anything else in the market space," explained Bjarne Berg, CEO of Vizrt. "This will enable content producers to truly create once, use multiple times and distribute everywhere."

Companies producing media today face the challenge of acquiring a large amount of content, storing it, editing it, retrieving it, and re-using it within a multitude of platforms, with individual requirements from SD, HD, Internet, interactive television, mobile phone standards, and podcasting.

"Combining Ardendo and Vizrt software creates opportunities for a new class of integrated products," said Jonas Engstroem, CEO of Ardendo. "I'm thrilled about the opportunities this will provide our customers. What Vizrt and Ardendo bring to the table will surely produce results to watch. Vizrt's recent acquisition history has been very well devised in terms of the type and quality of technologies acquired, their compatibility with Vizrt's product range, and the growth potential of the markets served. And, the global presence of Vizrt will provide immediate benefits for sales and support of Ardendo's current product portfolio. We look forward to becoming a part of such a dynamic organization."

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.