Wheelings & Dealings: ClearOne Brings Video Conferencing to the Cloud with $5 Million Acquisition of Spontania
January 07, 2014
By Laura Stotler
TMCnet Contributing Editor
In a bid to enter the cloud market with scalable, software-based cloud collaboration and video conferencing solutions, ClearOne (News - Alert) has announced it will purchase Spontania for around $5 million. The Spanish company, currently owned by Dialcom Networks, S.L., provides a cloud solution that combines video and web conferencing in one offering that may be scaled to serve tens of thousands of users.
Spontania’s collaboration offering will enable ClearOne to provide both on-premise and cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions through their software-based video conferencing product line. The cloud-based capabilities will be integrated with ClearOne’s COLLABORATE (VCON) premise-based enterprise video conferencing solution.
ClearOne has clearly been performing well over the past year, and the company is planning to pay all cash for Spontania’s assets, without assuming any debt. The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.
"This acquisition will position ClearOne to address a broad range of needs in the rapidly growing desktop and mobile video communications markets," said Zee Hakimoglu, chairman and CEO of ClearOne. "ClearOne can now offer its partners and end users a clear choice between public cloud, private cloud and on-premise solutions for video collaboration along with our industry-leading voice solutions."
Cloud collaboration offerings are growing in popularity as technology advances transform the workplace. The increasing adoption of the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend by employers and workers has led to demand for more complex ways for employees, employers and partners to work together.
Forrester (News - Alert) Research anticipates the market for collaboration services will grow at a steady rate of eight percent through 2018, having already hit a whopping $42 billion in 2012. And major market drivers will include cloud delivery models like SaaS and PaaS.
Spontania’s solution fits in nicely with the new model of cloud-based collaboration, enabling features like video and voice conferencing along with presence and instant messaging. Advanced features include interactive whiteboards and the ability to share media files and presentations. The offering is interoperable with other standards-based platforms and may be run on a variety of devices including Android (News - Alert), iOS, and the Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems.
Edited by Cassandra Tucker
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