Sky has taken a stake in Synamedia, the company formed when Cisco sold its Service Provider Video Software Solutions business last year, joining majority shareholder the Permira funds. Both Sky and Comcast are long-time Synamedia customers, as well as strategic development partners. Andrew Griffith, Sky’s Group Chief Operating Officer, says: “We’ve long collaborated with the team at Synamedia to help bring great content, products and entertainment to millions of customers across Europe and this investment will help deepen our innovative partnership.”
Synamedia has over 200 Pay TV and media customers. Yves Padrines CEO at the company, says: “At a time of accelerated evolution in the Pay TV industry, this investment is a fantastic endorsement from Sky of our product vision, R&D roadmap and service portfolio.”
Synamedia gave an indication of its priorities at IBC last September when it announced an enhanced version of the VideoGuard conditional access system, and an Android TV everywhere and RDK solution for its Infinite Video Platform, improvements to its Evo middleware, and demonstrations focused on multicast ABR, broadcast-equivalent streaming latency and cloud DVR. The company recently introduced a solution to counter password sharing on streaming services.