After passing regulatory muster, SeaChange International announced late yesterday that it had completed the sale of its broadcast server and storage unit to a private investment group that has named the newly formed company XOR Media.
SeaChange, which has been cutting costs and realigning its focus on being a software company for video-on-demand, advertising and multi-screen services, first announced the sale in March. Financial terms of the deal weren’t available.
“This sale is an important part of our strategy to transform SeaChange into a pure-play software company,” said SeaChange CEO Raghu Rau. “Now that the transaction is complete, we can focus on our core software and services operations, including our next-generation back office, video streamers, gateway software and advertising solutions.
“As much of the same team and superior products remain in place, customers can expect a smooth transition and seamless support from XOR Media in the future.”
Earlier this month, SeaChange named Rau as its permanent CEO after he served on an interim basis following the resignation of former CEO, chairman and founder William Styslinger late last year.
VantagePoint Capital Partners led the investment group’s purchase of the server and storage business from SeaChange. Zheng Gao moved over from being the president of SeaChange’s storage and server unit to CEO of XOR Media.
“XOR Media is a new business entity in name, but the same team and processes are here to ensure business continuity for our customers,” Gao said. “The feedback we have been receiving on XOR Media is very encouraging, and we are excited to launch new opportunities for XOR Media’s open, cloud-capable and media-optimized servers and storage.”
Vectra picks SeaChange’s Adrenalin for new VOD service
SeaChange also announced yesterday that Vectra, which is Poland’s third-largest cable operator, has picked SeaChange’s Adrenalin video back office platform to provision its video-on-demand service. Vectra’s new VOD service will make its debut sometime this year and will be followed by multi-screen services and social TV features.
“Consumers want ever-more choice. After extending our digital TV offering with additional channels, VOD is an important first step toward a truly multi-screen video service for our customers,” said Tomasz Zuranski, CEO of Vectra. “SeaChange has extensive experience of successful multi-screen video deployments worldwide, both in software and system integration. The Adrenalin video back office fits perfectly. It’s easy to integrate with our existing IT and conditional access system, it’s future-proof, and it has an open architecture that allows us to freely choose the best-of-breed components for our headend, as well as subscriber devices.”
Vectra provides analog and digital cable television to more than 800,000 customers in Poland. It offers broadband Internet, fixed telephony and mobile Internet. The choice of Adrenalin reflected Vectra’s plan to develop multi-screen services, delivering content to PCs, tablets and smartphones.