RGB网络获取RipCode

jeff Graham，首席执行官 RGB网络他很兴奋。. He senses movement in the video space, and his company is making moves of its own, namely acquiring RipCode.

“大约五年前，当我第一次成为RGB网络的首席执行官时,格雷厄姆在周一的电话采访中说, "I was surprised how few companies had approached the opportunity of the video space with a carrier-grade hardware/software combination. Today, it seems that everyone's trying to figure out how to get into the video game."

加州森尼维尔市的一部分.这家总部位于美国的公司的战略包括三屏解决方案, moving beyond the traditional MSO or 电信 world where IPTV was the major play and into a world that treats the desktop and mobile devices as equal delivery platforms to IPTV.

“我们需要一个三屏策略, 由尤瓦尔·菲舍尔在内部倡导, 一年前我雇他做首席技术官,格雷厄姆说。. “他做了一个评估矩阵, and found that RipCode offered the key components we needed for a mobile strategy."

走向IPO
The acquisition, terms of which have not been announced, is an all-stock deal. 格雷厄姆表示，RGB计划在大约一年内进行IPO, 是什么吸引了RipCode的投资者.

"We hope to IPO a year from now, and this is the strategy we'll take to market,格雷厄姆说。. "With 150 current employees and a valuation currently at $200 million prior to the acquisition, my investors wanted to understand why we needed to acquire the expertise of a 25-person company instead of building our own solution."

“尤瓦尔提出的理由是合理的，”他说. “第一, he determined that best solution for video delivery to PC and mobile requires high density transcoding; we had that solution already in our Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG)."

“第二, he pointed out that we also needed integrated mobile and PC format delivery systems on the same robust VMG platform,格雷厄姆说。, 今年正在进行试验, making an acquisition the best strategic move for timely response to trials."

RGB本身已经盈利了, 拥有1.5亿美元的终身销售额, 已经运送了10多个,000 units of its nine-product family to over 200 global customers in the cable, 卫星, 电信, 过多的, 还有政府领域.

“两类投资者都选择投资于新的RGB,格雷厄姆说。, 目前的投资者包括Accel, Kleiner Perkins, 和康卡斯特. "The confidence that the three-screen strategy gives both sets of investors is a testament to RGB's ability to deliver and RipCode's critical involvement in the three-screen strategy that will take us to an IPO."

新公司将维持奥斯汀, RipCode从成立之初就在德克萨斯的存在, with mobile and Intel-based solutions being vetted at that location.

当被问及来自以色列等公司的竞争时 Optibase是, 谁的MGW系列提供类似的电信级稳健性的RGB的VMG, Graham和Ramin Farassat, RGB的营销和业务发展副总裁, both said that they don't see much competition from companies only doing a portion of the three-screen strategy.

Optibase是在推出高清方面落后了,法拉萨特说, “而我们从一开始就将高清技术整合到底盘中. Where we see the most competition is from companies like Harmonic or Envivio, 谁的1ru服务器在标准的英特尔架构上运行."

“这些标准服务器是唯一的选择,他说, "and they aren't hardened the way most of the other NEBS-compliant equipment in 电信 and MSO racks are, which means significant overhead in terms of redundant systems just to achieve a level of fail-over and robustness that our VMG chassis inherently provides."

布兰登米尔斯, RipCode首席执行官, said the ability to rapidly integrate RipCode's software solutions into RGB's VMG was a natural step for the smaller company's mobile and ad-insertion solutions.

"Pairing our Intel-based software / hardware solution with an ASIC-based hardware transcoding platform makes strategic sense,米尔斯说。, adding that he sees the number of players within the transcoding market rapidly decreasing over the next 18 months.

可扩展性是关键
Mills also gave an example of a government customer that RipCode brings to the table. 在12月, RipCode announced a partnership with Harris and Lockheed Martin in support of Valiant Angel, a strategic military effort to transmit video from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or "drones" flying above the battlefield to in-theater battlefield devices used on the ground.

所有这些融合在一个强大的平台上并不便宜, but Graham explains the necessity of having a big-gun solution for 电信 or MSO environments.

“在高端市场,格雷厄姆说。, 一个满载的VMG底盘可能卖到100万美元, 并且能够处理400个视频流. 在一个试验案例中, we are ingesting one stream at a cable company but needing to send 14 streams out to IPTV, 桌面和移动平台. We feel we have the only totally integrated solution that can scale and meet video service provider reliability standards."

“底盘集成到一个单一的管理系统中, 所有模块均支持热插拔,格雷厄姆说。. "Yet each chassis can start with just one module-transcoding or ad insertion or mobile delivery-and then expand to multiple modules per chassis."

“我们不仅有IPTV的广告插入, but the RipCode acquisition gives us a fully ad-insertion solution for mobile delivery,格雷厄姆说。. "We see that we will use a variety of processor types to deliver the total solution: for ad insertion, FPGA; for transcoding, ASIC; for mobile delivery, Flash、Silverlight和英特尔刀片."

Graham finished with an example in which he sees a typical customer buying into a multiple-chassis solution.

The first chassis in a typical solution would handle ingest and possibly transcoding from MPEG-2 to H.264，反之亦然，”格雷厄姆说. 第二个底盘可以处理全国性的广告插入, while subsequent locations might each have a chassis to handle local station ingest and local ad insertion."

The newly combined company has a valuation today of over $220 million.