Cisco Completes Sale Of Service Provider Video Software Solutions Group To Permira Funds | Forbes

Cisco Systems today completed the sale of its Service Provider Video Software Solutions Group to global investment firm Permira Funds. The newly spun-off company is called Synamedia.

Syn is the Greek word for together and the new business hopes to bring together the worlds of broadband and broadcast.

As an arm of Cisco, the Service Provider Video Software Solutions Group was a cog in a much larger machine, Yves Padrines CEO of Synamedia is excited that now Synamedia will have the chance to flourish within its own right and concentrate on end-to-end video services.

“We want to focus on helping our customers to embrace IP,” he explains. “To complement their offerings for better consumer choice and convenience. Our online video platform can target any type of device, it could be a set-top box, connected TV, mobile devices, tablets, games consoles, etc.  from one single cloud-based solution.”

Interestingly, Padrines sees broadband players as a growing market for the business. “We are looking to help broadband players to be the aggregator of OTT applications because some of these players don’t want to spend too much money on acquiring content. We can help them to still be the one controlling the user experience on the video and TV side by having a unified view and search and aggregating all the different OTT applications. And, we can also help them to generate some additional revenue, by providing targeted advertising solutions.”

With content now coming in from everywhere on the IP side, securing revenue streams will remain a priority for the new business. Illegal credential sharing, or unauthorized password sharing, is one area that Synamedia will be focusing on. “Credential sharing will impact negatively and there will be a loss of revenue of around $10 billion for pay-TV operators by 2021,” says Padrines. “We want to help our customers to keep honest people honest. So we will help them to offer flexible packages, such as home plus college packages for families with kids in college, for example.”