MUMBAI: The California headquartered SCM Microsystems, which provides solutions that open the digital world has sold its digital TV solutions business to the Swiss based Kudelski Group. It has got $11 million in cash for the deal.
Kudelski Group chairman and CEO Andre Kudelski says, "SCM pioneered removable security for digital broadcasting and has helped build a market for open systems in the digital TV industry. Removable security modules will become a key enabler of digital pay-TV services as the retail market continues to grow and develop."
SCM Microsystems CEO Robert Schneider says, "The sale of our Digital TV business furthers our strategy to consolidate and restructure our organisation around a more focused business model. With one headquarters and operational center in Germany, one development facility in India and a seasoned sales team in the U.S., we believe that we will be able to take advantage of market opportunities more efficiently and cost effectively.
"Going forward, we intend to put our entire attention on leveraging our smart card and media reader businesses by providing industry-leading solutions for emerging markets such as e-health, e-passport, secure physical access, electronic payment and digital photo printing."
Under the terms of the agreement with Kudelski, SCM will sell substantially all of the assets that relate to its digital TV solutions business, including its office building in France, certain inventory, contracts, trademarks and intellectual property.
In addition 40 employees in Europe and Asia are expected to join Kudelski's newly created business focussed on providing secure pay-TV modules compatible with consumer electronic products for the digital TV industry. The products that Kudelski is acquiring include SCM's DVB and OpenCable compliant conditional access modules, used to securely decrypt digital television broadcasts, as well as
controller chips used in set-top boxes that interface with the decryption modules.
The Kudelski Group works in the field of digital security. Its technologies are used in a wide range of applications requiring access control and rights management, whether for securing transfer of information (digital television, broadband Internet, video-on-demand, interactive applications, etc.) or to control and manage access of people or vehicles to sites and events.
