In a move to bolster its enterprise-grade cloud computing offerings, IBM Corp. today announced that it has acquired cloud-based video services provider Clearleap Inc. Financial details were not disclosed.
According to the Armonk, N.Y.-based company, Clearleap will be integrated into the IBM Cloud platform and its Media & Entertainment video technology portfolio to help enterprises manage, monetize and grow user video experiences and deliver them securely over the Web and mobile devices. IBM will offer the Clearleap APIs on IBM Bluemix in 2016 to enable clients to build new video offerings quickly and easily.
“IBM is focused on being an essential partner to the rapidly changing M&E industry by helping our clients deliver personalized content to the right customer in real time anywhere in the world,” said Steven Canepa, IBM’s global media & entertainment industry general manager in a release. “The combination of Clearleap with our proven analytics and hybrid cloud capabilities will deliver exciting new video solutions that will fundamentally change communications across every industry.”
IBM added today’s news is part of a broader enterprise cloud strategy to make IBM Cloud the business platform of choice to transform video into a strategic source of enterprise data. The IBM strategy is designed to help clients leverage the value of video and empower users to access video from any device at any time. IBM also noted it is shifting its cloud strategy to enhance the performance and management of the Clearleap video tool and help clients accelerate the development of embedded video into applications.
Citing researcher stats estimating that 80 per cent of the world’s data is unstructured and dark to computer systems that cannot effectively manage or exploit it, the company said it is targeting organizations looking to leverage video as a primary mode of communication by way of CEO webcasts, conference keynotes, training & education, customer care, and how-to videos.
Today’s news is a response to an industry “tipping point” of sorts, notes Robert LeBlanc, senior vice-president, IBM Cloud, where the need for a platform that delivers visual content quickly and economically is “exploding across every industry.”
The Clearleap video platform – used by media and entertainment brands such as HBO, NFL, BBC America and Sony Movie Channel – is optimized for massive scalability, which enables clients to quickly ramp up and support millions of concurrent users within seconds, the company said.
