Motorola to Acquire Kreatel?
January 2006
Motorola has agreed to acquire the Swedish set-top box manufacturer Kreatel. Kreatel is included in significant IPTV deployments in Europe that include Telefonica in Spain, TeliaSonera in Sweden, and KPN in The Netherlands.
Motorola stated that it was particularly interested in the set-top box APIs that Kreatel has developed as well as its hybrid set-top boxes that support both IPTV and digital terrestrial services. Motorola also expects the Kreatel development center to become an important R&D resource for its IPTV products and strategies.
This acquisition is in line with our predictions that M&A activity in the IPTV market will increase in 2006. This acquisition brings important technologies to Motorola as well as much better access to the European market. We have been saying for some time that Motorola needs to expand to the global market.
This acquisition will help Kreatel to scale to the next level. The large companies are taking most of the business from the large service providers today. Kreatel as part of Motorola will be able to compete more effectively for this business.
{Note: analyst comments are italicized}
Source: MRG, Inc., January 2006 IPTV Bulletin
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