Gemstar Acquires Rival Aptiv Digital
$16M Deal Gives Gemstar Lock on Interactive-Programming-Guide Business
By Todd Spangler & Steve Donohue -- Multichannel News, 3/29/2007 6:56:00 PM
Gemstar-TV Guide International will acquire privately held Aptiv Digital, a developer of interactive program guides for cable set-top boxes, for about $16 million in cash.
Cable operators using Aptiv's IPG include Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and RCN.
Aptiv was founded in 1996 as Pioneer Digital Technologies. In 2005, Pioneer Digital was spun off to its management team, who formed Aptiv Digital.
The Burbank, Calif.-based company's products are interactive-navigation-software systems that include the Passport and Passport Echo IPGs, which have been ported to Motorola and Scientific Atlanta set-top platforms.
For Gemstar -- which already dominated the U.S. IPG sector, supplying its TV Guide Interactive product to Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox and other major cable operators -- the deal eliminates its closest competitor.
With Aptiv in Gemstar's control, the company's main competitive threats are IPGs developed by individual cable operators, including Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable, the latter of which is beginning to deploy its Digital Navigator IPG on several cable systems.
Microsoft also markets an IPG that competes with TV Guide Interactive, but through a licensing deal with Gemstar, Microsoft pays the IPG vendor a fee for every set-top that runs its guide.
Gemstar-TV Guide said Aptiv CEO Neil Jones will continue to manage day-to-day operations of the Aptiv business, reporting to Tom Carson, president of Gemstar-TV Guide's North American IPG group. Aptiv chief technology officer Haig Krakirian will continue to report to Jones and also to Steve Shannon, Gemstar-TV Guide's executive vice president of product development and technology.
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