Advanced Television

Cisco selling video software unit?

November 1, 2017

By Chris Forrester

Cisco Systems is reportedly looking for a buyer for its former NDS video software division, Cisco Videoscape.

Bloomberg is quoting people familiar with the process, adding that Cisco is looking to sharpen its focus in the extremely fast-changing network infrastructure business.

Cisco paid around $5 billion for NDS back in 2012. Cisco sold the former Scientific Atlanta business to Technicolor in 2015. Cisco bought Scientific Atlanta (SA) in 2005, paying $6.9 billion for the business.  Technicolor paid just $600 million for SA in 2015. At the time of the sale, Cisco claimed that it had recognised $27 billion of aggregate SA revenue in the years between acquisition and disposal.

At the time of the SA disposal, John Chambers, Chairman/CEO of Cisco, said in a statement: “At Cisco, we are prioritising our investments to deliver on our strategy of video in the cloud.”

NDS was a highly-regarded name in the TV and set-top box software and encryption business.  NDS was formed in 1988 in Israel and bought by News Corporation in 1992. In 2009, private equity business Permira and News Corp struck a $3.6 billion deal which turned NDS into a privately-held company

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