Cisco Brings TelePresence to Consumers with ūmi

Over a year ago, I had heard from a friend who works at Cisco that the company would was working on a consumer TelePresence product. After much anticipation, Cisco officially announced its consumer home TelePresence system called ūmi, which brings HD videoconferencing to consumers. ūmi is available for pre-order only in the U.S. and will start to ship on 11/15/2010 at a cost of $599.99. Cisco ūmi connects to an existing HD television and a broadband internet connection and comprises of a set top box, a remote, and a 1080p camera that sits on top of your TV.

As part of its ongoing efforts to capture the consumer video market, Cisco has made ūmi simple from a consumer standpoint. On your end, you'll need a HDTV, a broadband Internet connection with a minimum of 1.5 Mbps for 720p and 3.5 Mbps for 1080p and a Cisco ūmi service plan at $24.99/month or $274.99/year for unlimited calls and up to 100 minutes of recorded video messages.

From the reviews I've seen, the ūmi calls are very high quality and the audio is natural, much like the enterprise TelePresence products. Similar to Tandberg videoconferencing systems, ūmi is controlled by a single remote control that manages video calls, video messages, contacts, and profile and settings. Recorded messages can be shared on Facebook, YouTube, or via email.

The camera is set on autofocus, autoexposure, white balance, optical zoom, as well as a motor for panning and tilting. Cisco was also smart to make ūmi compatible with Google video chat, which allows ūmi systems to send and receive video calls to any user with a computer, webcam and Google video chat.

Cisco chairman and CEO John Chambers said:

"Cisco ūmi will bring the unique telepresence experience into living rooms and change the way we are able to be together with family and friends. We envision a future where technologies like this will play a role in connecting consumers with businesses to enable the delivery of new services, ranging from education, to health care, to financial services – to the home."

As part of its non-stop TelePresence marketing campaign, Cisco will be launching a major marketing campaign for ūmi with "The Oprah Winfrey Show",  Ellen Page, the star of "Juno" and "Inception," and a Cisco ūmi mall tour that begins Nov. 10 and travels to more than 20 major malls across the U.S.

I love it that my friend Dave Beeler, star of Safety Geeks and Invention with Brian Forbes stars in all the new ūmi commercials.



Cisco is working with Verizon to bring ūmi to Verizon FiOS customers early next year, and also is working with Best Buy as a ūmi reseller through its Magnolia Home Theatre stores this holiday season. Magnolia Home Theatre stores will provide product support and bandwidth packages, with installation and support provided by The Geek Squad.

Also this week, Logitech announced its Google TV product, Logitech Revue With Google TV, that is similarly priced for all the bells and whistles, according to Techcrunch. Techcrunch also caught up with Marthin De Beer, Cisco’s SVP of the Emerging Technologies Group, for an interview to question him about ūmi's $600.00 price tag. According to De Beer, ūmi is like a fine “piece of chocolate,” as "it’s impossible to define it’s worth without a little taste."

Cisco ūmi specs:

Video resolution

• Full HD 1080p video calling (1920x1080 pixels) and 720p recording at 30 frames per second.
• Dynamic resolution scaling based on available bandwidth (1080p, 720p, and 480p supported)

Camera optics and mechanics

• Optical zoom
• Multi glass lens
• Auto focus, auto exposure and auto white balance
• Motorized aim –pan, tilt, and zoom
• Motorized shutter for privacy control

Microphone and speaker

• Built-in microphone array with software beamforming
• Embedded speaker for incoming call ringing

TV compatibility

• Compatible with high-definition widescreen TVs capable of 1080p or 720p with available HDMI port.
• Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n ) 

Networking

• 10/100 Ethernet (RJ-45)

Video/Audio input and outputs

• HDMI Out: ūmi console to TV, HDMI In: media passthrough supported with select set top boxes and BluRay equipment.
• Digital audio over HDMI or optical audio

Infrared

• Built-in IR receiver for ūmi remote

Cisco Extends Its Reach, Acquires ExtendMedia for Global Video Domination and TV Everywhere

Yesterday, Cisco Systems Inc. announced further expansion of its global video M&A strategy with its intent to acquire ExtendMedia Inc., to power its multi-screen delivery and "TV Everywhere" services. While financial terms of the transaction are undisclosed, Streaming Media EVP, Dan Rayburn estimates the the deal at $80 million which is expected to be complete in the first half of Cisco's fiscal year 2011. The Extend Media purchase will up Cisco's ability to grab a larger stake in the set-top business and IP-based video services.

Founded in 1991, the privately-held Boston, Massachusetts-based company specialized in video content management and monetization. It's closet competitor is thePlatform, which is owned by Comcast. ExtendMedia's main product is OpenCASE, a carrier-grade "TV Everywhere" platform for managing, publishing and monetizing video across PCs, televisions and mobile devices as well as game platforms, set-top boxes, and WiFi-enabled HDTVs. The majority of its employee base in Toronto, Canada, and will be integrated into Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group.

Cisco's Enrique Rodriguez, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group explained the benefits of this deal:

 "ExtendMedia will strengthen Cisco's position in the delivery of IP video services by enabling service providers to provide a more interactive and personal experience and to optimize quality for consumer viewing devices."

Extend Media outlined the reasons for Cisco's acquistion in this FAQ:

Q. Why is Cisco acquiring ExtendMedia?

A: Cisco chose ExtendMedia because it has demonstrated success with key Tier-1 Service Providers. ExtendMedia brings a strong software team that understands the complexities of delivering multi-screen video over IP networks. Cisco has developed a successful working relationship with ExtendMedia over the past 2 years, and expects seamless integration with existing engineering teams. With expertise in both IP networks and video infrastructure, Cisco can enable Service Providers to offer a more interactive and personal experience and optimize delivery and quality for the viewing device.

Jeff Baungartner of Light Reading Cable provided some context to the deal within the overall market of multi-screen delivery:

"The deal arrives as operators such as Comcast Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and Dish Network Corp. ramp up their TV Everywhere services, and cable operators begin to pursue IP video strategies. (Dish: TV Everywhere Site Is Portal to Growth.)

The acquisition would put Cisco in more direct competition with a range of publishers that have TVE aspirations, including Brightcove Inc., Limelight Networks Inc., which recently expanded into the game with its purchase of Delve Networks; and Comcast-owned thePlatform Inc. (Limelight Takes Aim at thePlatform, Brightcove.)"

While Cisco's press release didn't mention TV Everywhere, there is big money to be had in it over the next few years. Extend Media has been discussing how the television industry is being remade with the rise of the "The Virtual MSO" (”MSO” or “Multiple System Operator” is the industry term for a cable operator, like Comcast), as Janko Roettgers pointed out in his post Cisco’s ExtendMedia Purchase: TV Everywhere And Beyond:

"TV Everywhere was the industry’s favorite buzz word last year, and a number of operators as well as cable networks from Comcast to HBO have rolled out dedicated offerings since, but consumers have yet to jump onto these services en masse. However, it looks like ExtendMedia’s vision of TV Everywhere goes far beyond what’s being offered today."

Over the last several years, Cisco has been building its video empire with a focus on video collaboration, content creation and management, with the purchase of the Pure Digital, makers of popular Flip Video Camera, and videoconferencing vendor Tandberg, who it competed with in the TelePresence market.

According to Cisco, the Pure Digital acquisition exemplified its "build, buy and partner" strategy to move quickly into new markets and capture key market transitions. Working in many cases as a virtual company Cisco brokers services and white labels platforms that it hasn't yet acquired. At the time of the Tandberg deal which was a $3 billion purchase, New York Times' Ashlee Vance highlighted Cisco's recent M&A activity highlighted Cisco's recent M&A activity:

"In recent years, Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., has been one of the technology industry’s most aggressive companies when it comes to acquisitions. It has bought close to 40 companies in the last five years, including the $6.9 billion purchase of the set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta and the $2.9 billion purchase of the Web meeting software maker WebEx. This year, Cisco bought Pure Digital, which makes the popular Flip video camera for consumers, for $590 million."

Several years earlier, Cisco also acquired web conferencing platform WebEx, a desktop collaboration standard for many companies and core to Cisco's unified communications experience. There's also speculation that Cisco will expand into the booming virtual event platform its own product for managing large scale virtual events. Over this past year, Cisco acquisitions have included smart grid company Grid Net, design consultancy Moto Development Group, and digital signal processing company Core Optics. See: List of acquisitions by Cisco Systems - Wikipedia for more information.

In this video Charles Carmel, VP Corporate Development, discusses major Cisco acquisitions and investments in FY2010 in relation to its "build, buy and partner" strategy:

Unlike Comcast that now own a stake of NBC, Cisco has yet to buy a content company and stayed primarily within the media and host network layers. But as the video industry and digital media space furthers consolidates, who's to say they won't?

About Cisco Systems

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and corporate social responsibility. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.


About ExtendMedia:
ExtendMedia is the leading independent provider of enterprise-class, multi-screen video software and solutions that help content owners and distributors build and deploy video services. Extend's flagship product, OpenCASE, manages video content across the lifecycle from ingest to monetization and across IPTV, web and mobile services in both ad-supported and pay media business models. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., ExtendMedia powers initiatives for innovative communications, media and consumer electronics companies including AT&T, Bell Canada, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi/UB Cross, SanDisk and Thales. For more information, visit www.extend.com.


Related:

• Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire ExtendMedia -> Cisco News
• Cisco’s ExtendMedia Purchase: TV Everywhere And Beyond
• Updated: Cisco To Acquire Extend Media In Deal Worth $80M | The Business Of Online Video
• Light Reading Cable - Video - Cisco Buys Into TV Everywhere (Again) - Telecom News Analysis
• Updated: Cisco Buys Online Video Distributor ExtendMedia For $80 Million | paidContent
• The Television Industry Re-Made; the Rise of the “Virtual MSO”
• Cisco Buying ExtendMedia, Three Screen Content Platform + Networking
• ExtendMedia » And the walls came tumbling down…

Update 8/28/2010: Added YouTube - Charles Carmel discusses major Cisco acquisitions and investments in FY2010 and additional Cisco 2010 M&A information

KIT digital Provides Multi-platform Video Delivery with VX-one Platform

I met with Lou Schwartz, Head of the Americas for KIT digital, at Streaming Media East 2010, to get an update on the recent merger of Multicast Media with KIT digital. Schwartz co-founded and led Multicast Media for 10 years, a privately-held Atlanta-based online video platform company that specialized in live webcasting, IP video management and targeted multimedia communications. Schwartz discussed the rationale for the merger transaction, and KIT digital's product roadmap strategy focused on multi-platform delivery and greenfield markets.

KIT digital is a publicly traded IP-based video delivery company based in Prague, Czech Republic with global offices in 28 different countries and 3 regions, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and, the Americas, that extends from Canada to South America, which Schwartz assumed responsibility for with the merger. KIT digital acquired Multicast Media in March 2010 for approximately $18 million, following the purchases of Narrowstep, Visual Connection, Morpheum, Kamera, The Feedroom and Nunet. Both The Feedroom and Nunet brands were both acquired and retired in late 2009, but Multicast is alive and well and now part of the KIT digital family.

Multicast Media provided media communications solutions and delivered 50,000 live events in 2009 for nearly 1,000 organizations of all types, with a large sector of media and entertainment, faith-based and enterprise customers. Schwartz said that the rationale for the merger with KIT digital, was based on a huge opportunity for Multicast to grow beyond its vertical strategy in browser-based delivery to multi-platform three-screen delivery, with a greater emphasis on mobile handsets and set-top boxes and IPTV delivery. After 10 year in the business, Multicast recognized that the market was rapidly expanding in favor of multi-platform delivery.

According to Schwartz:

"What KIT brought to the table was all this experience globally around the mobile handsets and set-top box and IPTV delivery, and felt that our clients and customers, particularly in the enterprise space and other vertical markets that we were pursuing, were looking for a true multi-platform strategy. What the transaction did for us was enable us to expand the breadth of our product and service and also give us global visibility – and being a publicly traded company today is really a safe bet when enterprise customers are looking to find a vendor of choice."

Schwartz described KIT digital's financial performance positive, with a recently completed capital raise of about $60 million, a healthy balance sheet, and a first quarter revenue up 80% to record $17.4 million from $9.6 million in the same quarter a year ago. According to a recent earnings report, KIT digital currently has approximately 23.1 million common shares outstanding, with approximately $67 million in cash on the balance sheet. The company's revenues are primarily comprised of software license and maintenance fees, software set-up fees, and technical integration and creative service charges.

The merger helped Multicast cross sell among products among existing KIT customers and take advantage of greenfield markets where it hadn't been able to take advantage of previously. What is unique and really appealing him, Schwartz said, is the heightened focus on verticalizing around certain markets. As this industry matures, he said, the audience for their services are looking for guidance and they are taking more of a consultative approach to sales and marketing. Not all video initiatives are driven by monetization models based on advertising, subscription and pay-per-view as with media and entertainment, and customers other verticals like enterprise, faith, government have specialized business requirements that mainly drive corporate communications, training, marketing and sales.

As part of the appeal of the acquisition strategy, Schwartz described the goal of consolidating the "best of breed" capabilities into one common platform they call VX-one, which has been released and start migrating customers onto over the next few quarters. KIT is harvesting the best technology and solutions from within each of the product stacks of Multicast, The Feedroom and other acquisitions into a unified platform. KIT also recently acquired broadcast video and IPTV provider, Benchmark Broadcast Systems, to further expand in the South Asia, Southeast Asia and Greater China region.

Schwartz elaborated on KIT's view of the online video platform space, reiterating that the company is taking more of a consultative approach with its customers:

"With respect to the online video platform space, we still see it as a very crowded market, particularly in the US. As we expand our focus globally we're seeing greenfield markets again. We're going to into South America, into Brazil, into Argentina, where don't see our peers regularly. But we're not competing in an online video platform space for the table stakes, the things that you commonly see in an online video platform – transcoding, asset  management and distribution – there's certain basic features that all of our peers and competitors have baked into their online video platform. 

We believe that we have to touch the client in a variety of ways. It's not just video on demand put on your website, but it's video threaded into every communication. We're looking for customers that are making video the fabric of their communicate strategy... We're not looking for the commodity buyer, we're looking for the purchaser within our defined verticals that is more solutions and business oriented, and looking to us for thought leadership and guidance."

About KIT digital, Inc.
KIT digital (NASDAQ: KITD) is a leading, global provider of on-demand, Internet Protocol (IP)-based video asset management systems (VAMS). KIT VX-one, the company's end-to-end software platform, enables enterprise clients to acquire, manage and distribute video assets across the three screens of today's world: the personal computer, mobile device, and IPTV-enabled television set. The application of VX ranges from commercial video distribution to internal corporate deployments, including corporate communications, human resources, training, security and surveillance. KIT digital's client base includes more than 1,000 customers across 30+ countries, including The Associated Press, Best Buy, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Disney-ABC, FedEx, General Motors, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, IMG Worldwide, Intel, News Corp, Telefonica, the U.S. Department of Defense, Verizon, and Vodafone. KIT digital is headquartered in Prague, and maintains principal offices in Atlanta, Cairo, Cologne, Dubai, Melbourne (Australia), London, New York, Stockholm and Toronto.
For additional information, visit www.kitd.com or follow the company on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KITdigital.