Intel Formally Shuts Off Its Web TV Plans, with Sale to Verizon

January 22, 2014 Leave a comment

Intel Formally Shuts Off Its Web TV Plans, with Sale to Verizon

January 21, 2014, 2:08 AM PST

By Peter Kafka

Intel is now officially out of the Web TV business: The company has formally announced the sale of its Intel Media unit to Verizon, a deal we first told you about back in October.The two companies didn’t announce terms for the deal, which is scheduled to close “early in the first quarter,” but said that Verizon plans to purchase all of Intel Media’s assets and expects to hire “substantially all” of its 350 employees.

The two companies also said Verizon would hang on to Intel Media’s top executives, led by general manager Erik Huggers.

In a statement, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich echoed comments he had made to Re/code’s Ina Fried earlier this year, arguing that Intel had developed cool technology for delivering pay TV over the Web, but wasn’t able (or willing) to buy content for that technology: “Intel Media’s over-the-top TV products are truly innovative and under Verizon’s ownership have the potential to change how people interact with content. The critical factor in gaining efficient access to content is based on your ability to scale quickly in subscribers and end users, which is why selling these assets to Verizon makes perfect sense, with its millions of FiOS network and wireless customers.”

Verizon doesn’t spell out what it intends to do with OnCue, the Web TV system Intel Media had developed, but the wording of its release suggests that it may bundle it with both its FiOS pay TV service, as well as with Verizon Wireless’s LTE network. Late last year, Verizon bought two other Web video companies — EdgeCast and UpLynk — for around $500 million.

Earlier this month, Sony announced that it would bring its own Web TV service to market in 2014, echoing promises that Intel made, but couldn’t fulfill, in 2013.

 

 

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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