SAN CARLOS, Calif., July 17, 2000 - Liberate Technologies, the leading provider of software for the delivery of enhanced television content, today announced it received a $100 million investment from Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet.
The investment deepens Cisco's relationship with Liberate, ensuring next generation broadband devices and services are based on open Internet standards and delivering more choice to service providers and their customers. Together, the companies will co-sell and co-market solutions to network operators around the world, reducing time to market and enabling both companies to deliver open standards, IP-based solutions for interactive television.
In return for its $100 million investment, Cisco receives a 3.88 percent stake in Liberate and furthers its product, marketing and sales relationship with Liberate. This makes Cisco the third largest investor in Liberate. As part of the non-exclusive agreement, Liberate also agrees to formally join Cisco's New World Ecosystem program, a community of technology companies that assist service providers in deploying revenue-generating services to customers.
"Both Cisco and Liberate share a vision of digital entertainment and interactive services delivered via open Internet standards," said Paul Bosco, VP of Marketing, Applications, and Services for Cisco's IP Carrier and Access Groups. "We are both moving to support the global rollout of Internet and Web enabled appliances including set-top boxes, game players, thin clients, and mobile wireless devices."
"Cable companies and telcos are moving rapidly to deliver a range of new services over broadband, and Liberate and Cisco can together deliver the best open standards-based solutions and support, from set-top to server," said Mitchell Kertzman, president and CEO, Liberate Technologies. "Our two companies are armed with the leading technologies and experience to successfully guide the integration as standards-based and broadcast infrastructures continue to merge."
Cisco's core broadband offering will be integrated with the Liberate TV Platform software, which consists of the Liberate TV NavigatorTM client software, and the Liberate ConnectTM server software. The combined architecture will include Cisco directory services, and DOCSIS and network software stacks. As the delivery of enhanced services over broadband networks continues to grow, Cisco and Liberate will work closely to extend IP-based services to the new range of consumer devices and networks that emerge.
Cisco is already an infrastructure member of Liberate's PopTV program, which addresses the needs of the key players in the enhanced TV market. These include hardware developers porting the Liberate software platform to a variety of set-top boxes; infrastructure partners who provide core technology integration; and application and content developers. It enables and promotes complete interactive television solutions for network operators that are based on open standards and have a reduced time to rollout.
