Enhances UK presence
Ipercast, a European specialist in multimedia content management and delivery for the Web and mobile devices, today announced the acquisition of the technology and production assets of 3G Factory, a company specialised in deploying and operating mobile multimedia services applied to 3G video telephony.
A specialist in its technological field since its creation in 2005 in Lyon, France, 3G Factory is said to be a leading provider of video calling services in France and one of the key European players in the market. With an 'extensive' catalogue of applications, 3G Factory anticipated the rise in demand for mobile video services from operators and, looking beyond, from Internet businesses at large with the advent of multimedia convergence.
With the integration of 3G Factory, Ipercast says it strengthens its capability in the mobile content delivery market. The whole 3G Factory team, including its two founders Dante Tota and Thierry Barnier, will now work under the Ipercast umbrella. In the short-term, their main task will be to integrate Ipercast's mobile streaming offer and 3G Factory's 3G video telephony offer into a single multimedia platform that will cater for the full mobile multimedia spectrum – 3G mobile streaming, 3G video telephony and Web 2.0 services.
With the new platform, Ipercast says it has a strong strategic position in the mobile video market, positioning itself as the "facilitating agent" to accompany media operations, publishers, mobile marketing agencies and mobile Internet/messaging companies as they deploy their 3G video applications in Europe.
In a separate announcement, Ipercast announced that it has enhanced its UK presence with the opening of a new office and the appointment of Marina Sirotkin as UK Country Manager. The move follows installation of a network Point of Presence (PoP) in England during 2007 which has been connected to Ipercast's global fibre optic network to provide its customers with a more efficient delivery service for the past two years.
Established in 2001 and headquartered in Paris, Ipercast has developed a comprehensive service offering covering all areas of multi-media content streaming and web caching services designed to help businesses improve the delivery of their content on the Web. Ipercast delivers its services through its own CDN (Content Delivery Network). The Ipercast network's core fibre optic backbone alone spans over 6,000 miles and the network includes many thousands of servers located all over Europe, the United States, Canada and Asia.
Marina Sirotkin, Country Manager, Ipercast commented: "Ipercast has developed a unique solution for management of the complete digital media eco-system including back end content distribution and front end content management – right the way through to content monitisation and security. Our technology enables customers to a save significant amount of money through Meta-Caching, as well as offering the ability to optimise and manage content delivery to web and mobile devices. Our latest investment in the UK means stronger relationships with our current UK-based customers including Orange and Universal Music whilst presenting significant opportunities to forge new partnerships with ISPs, telecommunications firms, content owners and the digital media industry."
Jean Michel Laveissière, CEO and Founder, Ipercast added: "Ipercast has a long history of innovation and has successfully doubled its revenue between 2006 and 2008 thanks to excellent service provision to our major customers including; Darty, Real Networks and the TF1 Group. We are committed to strengthening our footprint and capability in the UK."
Ipercast services include the full range of secure streaming and caching solutions such as Video-on-Demand (VOD), intelligent CDN services, mobile streaming, front-end content management tools, Digital Rights Management (DRM), a User Generated Content (UGC) platform, advertising and legitimate Peer 2 Peer (P2P) solutions.