From PC World: After ten years of making networked set-top boxes, Cisco Systems plans to quit the business, selling its Connected Devices division to French firm Technicolor, the companies said Thursday.
Although Cisco will stop making video customer premises equipment for service providers, it will continue to develop software and cloud services to help telcos deliver IPTV and other video services to their customers, Cisco’s business development director Hilton Romanski wrote in a blog post.
The companies plan to collaborate on developing video products for service providers, he wrote, and that collaboration will include Romanski taking a seat on Technicolor’s board.
Technicolor is already a major player in this market, but acquiring Cisco’s video CPE business will double its revenue in the segment to around €3 billion, it said. That revenue will come from shipping around 60 million set-top boxes and home gateways each year, building on an installed base of about 290 million set-top-boxes and 185 million gateways, it said.
The companies expect to close the sale, for €550 million (US$600 million) in cash and stock, by the end of January.
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