InletTechnologies
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Cisco looking to acquire Inlet Technologies, get even hipper with streaming
We haven't heard a lot about Inlet Technologies over the years, a company that works mostly behind the scenes on advanced encoding technology, but it was right there on the cutting-edge of the Blu-ray bandwagon back in 2008. Now it's looking set to become the latest addition to Cisco, with that company announcing intent to drop $95 million and see the acquisition through. It's not entirely clear what Cisco will do if it picks up this toy, but it certainly sounds like mobility is on the mind of Enrique Rodriguez, Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group General Manager: Cisco's Videoscape platform will play a key role in reinventing the TV experience, and the acquisition of Inlet will enable our customers to leverage the network as a platform to deliver innovative video experiences to consumers on any device. If that name sounds familiar, until recently Enrique worked at Microsoft on, among other things, the Zune and Media Center. That might also give another clue to where Cisco is going.
Inlet Technologies and NetBlender team up to help smaller studios go Blu
It looks like Sonic Solutions isn't the only one bringing new Blu-ray production tools to market -- plenty of smaller studios just want an easier way to jump into Blu-ray titles, not necessarily flashier BD-J features. To answer that need, Inlet Technologies has taken its Fathom encoding platform and partnered with NetBlender's DoStudio authoring software to put smaller studios on the Blu-ray bandwagon. So the tools are all lined up; if only something could be done about player prices, we might see some critical mass building up behind Blu-ray.
