This article originally appeared in Rethink's Faultline
Fresh off of its ActiveVideo and Pace acquisitions, Arris announced a new partnership with Akamai, to offer the Aura Licensed Content Delivery Network (LCDN) within its IP video delivery portfolio. The reselling deal lets Arris take an additional step closer to be a complete one-stop-shop for customer entire video needs, and Akamai is evidently happy to go along for the ride – as the leader in CDNs isn’t exactly short on orders.
As well as the LCDN, Arris will be offering the Aura Object Store in addition to existing products – bolstered by its $2.1 billion acquisition of Pace, as well as its $135 million joint venture with Charter to acquire ActiveVideo.
The new deal will see LCDN services and the Object Store sold alongside Arris offerings like the M3 Media Server and nPVR, with support for CDN via Akamai’s global CDN – useful for events that scale to the size of the Olympics or Super Bowls.
At the analyst event where the deal was unveiled, Arris’ Steve McCaffery said that the Arris transition from cable hardware to a services business lent itself well to the new deal. McCaffery also told the room the days of questioning whether video went over WiFi were over, and that the operational savings were clear to be seen.
While additional details about the Pace detail were scant, McCaffery added that the deal brought Arris into the satellite markets on the back of its portfolio – hinting at the benefits that the potential AT&T-DirecTV deal would have for the CPE market.
Finishing with the affirmation that 2015 would be a transitional year for Arris, with the Pace deal due to close by the end of the year, with the emphasis on a completion nearer December rather than June end of the H2 bracket. Moods were upbeat, as the UK Arris speakers gleefully taunted their US colleagues about the pending UK domiciliation of the company post-Pace – although the HQ will still be in the US.