By Jim Lundy
The Consolidation in Enterprise Video Continues – Qumu, Vbrick and Ramp in the News
The Enterprise Video market is consolidating as we speak and today marked two moves that impact Qumu and Vbrick – and different reasons for the deals.
Aragon has been saying that innovation has been lagging in this market – and when that happens consolidation is the next logical move.
This blog discusses the Qumu and Vbrick deals.
Qumu Sold to Enghouse
In a deal that was not a surprise – Qumu announced that it was being sold to Enghouse, a publicly traded Software firm based in Canada, announced it was purchasing Qumu for 18 million in cash.
While representing a 105% premium over the stock price, it is $6M less than the 2021 revenues that Qumu generated.
Qumu Deal Analysis – Will This One Stick?
Qumu has not been growing and when there is slowed growth, the quickest way out is to sell.
They had been seeking a buyer for some time and had 2 new CEOs in two years.
It had attempted to sell itself to Synacor in 2020, but that deal was reversed leaving Qumu on its own.
While new CEO Rose Bentley had been fighting the good fight, to us, the board wanted out – and kept pursuing a sale.
What Does Enghouse Know About Vidyo?
The answer to this question – is they know a little – having bought Vidyo just a few years ago.
The question is will they invest – now that they have two Enterprise Video platforms.
To us, Enghouse appears to be a holding company that is similar to another Canadian holding company in Enterprise Content Platforms – Opentext.
We will take a wait and see what Enghouse does with Qumu – but if the past is a predictor of the future – Enghouse has not done much with the Vidyo Asset it acquired in 2019.
Vbrick Buys Ramp to Control its Destiny in eCDN
If Qumu/Enghouse was a roll-up type of deal, the Vbrick acquisition of Ramp looks to be about market expansion.
With this deal Vbrick becomes a major provider of Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN), a critical component for the distribution/delivery of video streaming at scale.
Vbrick has a clear strategy and one of those elements is controlling more of the ecosystem that surrounds Enterprise Video. The timing worked well.
Ramp itself had been for sale for a while and with Vbrick as the owner, we feel more investment will flow to ramp to help it remain as one of the leaders in ECDN.
On top of that, Vbrick’s move is similar to what Microsoft did in 2021, when it acquired Peer5, a WebRTC based eCDN.
With the Vbrick acquisition, the question is will Ramp continue to partner with Brightcove, Kaltura, Microsoft and moving image.
Fewer eCDN Choices in the Enterprise
The eCDN market is consolidating and for Enterprise video providers without an eCDN, the future is not great.
That said, enterprises that are procuring an Enterprise Video platform should be asking for product roadmaps related to eCDN – particularly for large volumes of users.
The Future of Enterprise Video is About AI and Use Cases
One of the challenges that Enterprise Video providers face is sticking to the old way of doing things.
Video is not all about town halls and large scale events. The ability to share video and to find the video to share are also part of the story around new use cases.
Old use cases in Sales, Marketing, Learning and Support can become new ones with more intelligence – an area that Aragon refers to as Computer Vision.
Bottomline
The two deals that just occurred in Enterprise Video are the tip of the iceberg.
The saying goes “Innovate or Die” and for now there are not enough Enterprise Video providers who are innovating.
For more news and insights, check out the Digital Workplace blog series by Aragon Research’s CEO, Jim Lundy.
