Telstra CEO, David Thodey.
Telstra’s Global Applications and Platform Group has made its first acquisition via the purchase of a 98 per cent stake in Silicon Valley-based video streaming and analytics company, Ooyla, valued at $US270 million.
The move increases the telecommunication provider’s existing investment of $US61m (23 per cent) in the company.
According a statement to the ASX, Ooyla will become a subsidiary of Telstra and operate as an independent business, retaining its brand, structure and management under the Group following the takeover.
Ooyala chief executive officer (CEO), Jay Fulcher, will continue to lead the business.
Telstra CEO, David Thodey, claims the controlling stake in Ooyala will allow the telco to “establish a consolidated leading global company to deliver platforms and services on which the next generation of TV and video will be built.”
“Ooyala enables broadcasters, operators and media organisations to deliver digital TV and video content across any devices to mass audiences, using analytics to provide recommendations, personalised content and advertising to the end user,” he said.
“Telstra’s global customer relationships, our established presence in Asia and proven integration capabilities, combined with our expertise in online video and investment in Foxtel provide us a unique opportunity to succeed in this growth market.”
This acquisition follows last month’s launch of Telstra’s business-to-business (B2B) video service, preceded by the telco’s partnership with Cisco to house the Californian networking vendor’s ‘global intercloud’ in its Australian datacentres.
In July, Telstra global enterprise and services products and solutions executive director, Philip Jones, said the video service would make it easier for customers to expand video calling to a wider business community.
“For some time we’ve seen the power and growth of video applications among consumers,” he said. “But in business, technology barriers remain which can prevent organisations from using video outside of their own workforce.”
Jones claimed the capability removed technology barriers by introducing Cloud collaboration with video calling that is interoperable, easy to use, and designed for business.
