Moser Baer Gets Blu-Ray IP By Acquiring OM&T BV From Philips

Moser Baer, which has been in the news for their Home Entertainment business has acquired a majority 81 percent stake in Philips optical technology and R&D subsidiary OM&T BV for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition has been done through their fully owned subsidiary in Cyprus – Peraround. Before two years are up, says Ratul Puri, Executive Director of Moser Baer, they’ll acquire 100 percent stake. Puri said that they’ve acquired multiple patents with this acquisition, but couldn’t disclose the exact number. OM&T is primarily a tech R&D company which does limited manufacturing of early stage products, and revenues of around 10million Euros. It is the only company outside of Japan that is shipping Blu Ray discs.
Puri sees the acquisition as a significant strategic move to get a piece of the future market for Blu Ray, by leveraging OM&T BV’s IP. Does he feel threatened by digital content delivery via IPTV or Internet streaming? Not really – the pipe is limited – around 5-6 mbps for IPTV, so there are problems when multiple users start viewing content – and thus the cost of delivery will be higher than the Rs.28 and Rs.34 price points for Moser Baer’s Home Entertainment segment.
Moser Baer already has IP related to HD-DVD, and I asked Rakesh Govil, EVP of Moser Baer if he’s willing to take sides on HD-DVD and Blu Ray. He believes that both technologies will exist simultaneously so Moser Baer sees opportunity in both. Will digital delivery of content make removable storage redundant? Not likely – people will always want to store critical content with themselves, rather than on someone else’s server.

Comments have been disabled for this post