Vitec has announced that it has acquired integrated IPTV and digital signage provider Exterity as part of plans to accelerate Vitec’s growth.
The engineering teams of both companies will combine to develop a strategy to migrate both companies’ IPTV and digital signage portfolio into a converged platform, with a team of almost 200 Vitec engineers, with Exterity ruling out the possibility of redundancies and site closures of any kind as a result of the acquisition. Speaking exclusively to Inavate, Colin Farquhar, CEO, Exterity, commented: "We have no intention of letting anybody go, everyone is going to carry on the work for Exterity.
"This acquisition is about building more value and the engineering team will be part of the larger Vitec organisation while remaining a distinctly Scottish team, collaborating with their new colleagues around the world. I expect expansion on the Exterity side. We’re doing a lot of important work and as we continue our expansion plans, there are no discussions about site closures."
Vitec is also connecting with Exterity’s network of integrators and partners and continuing to support Exterity customers post-acquisition, exploiting the success of each company in their relevant spaces.
Farquhar explained: "As a business, we’re very complimentary; We’re developing the same kind of streaming type products but we have different market verticals that we’re focusing on. Vitec have great strengths in the US market and we have great strength in Europe and the Middle East so the combination is creating quite a powerhouse in the IPTV space.
"A lot of our focus is going to be outside the US, we’re looking at what we’re doing across Europe and the Middle East. As a business, we have been hugely successful within the Middle East and that’s going to be an area where we see a lot of opportunities because of the range of technologies available that we can bring to our customers, opening up the combined product set to our customers. In particular with Asia, we have had a strong presence for many years and a lot of the technologies that Vitec have available really help us to penetrate that market with more technology.
"We certainly expect to be helping Vitec in markets where we’ve been strong in, there’s always an opportunity for us to bring a fresh angle to the solution set. Vitec are very strong in the stadium space with large scale stadium projects, but some of the requirements outside the US are different and it’s an area where Exterity can come in with a slightly different product set."
The integration of Exterity into Vitec is expected to take at least three months, with full integration of both companies expected to be completed within a year. Farquhar explained "We will in due course review the brand and I expect that we will move to a Vitec brand at some point in the future, but that will be determined by our customers' views.
"Existing customers will see no change; They will see products that are supported and will see more products to support applications that we have and things that Exterity hasn't done for customers to date where Vitec products will enable new capabilities. We'll be discussing how we can extend IPTV and signage systems with our customers."