
IBM Acquires UStream, Forms New Cloud Video Unit - carlsbaddev
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/21/ibm-confirms-acquisition-of-ustream-forms-new-cloud-video-unit/
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gregdoesit
This aquisition is not a great exit for UStream, that was valued at $150M in
2010, but an exit none the less. I doubt the founders or employees would see
as much of the $130M as they would have hoped, due to a massive $62M VC
investment being in place... but still likely a much better outcome then if
the company would have had to slowly wind down. (The investment structure of
UStream is a bit complicated, but this article summarizes well why the amount
is likely very close to this number [https://gigaom.com/2011/12/09/ustream-
softbank-funding-colla...](https://gigaom.com/2011/12/09/ustream-softbank-
funding-collapse/)).

In 2011 the company rebooted itself to a B2B direction - see
[http://www.businessinsider.com/this-once-red-hot-startup-
had...](http://www.businessinsider.com/this-once-red-hot-startup-had-its-
funding-pulled-because-of-its-xxx-ceo-2012-1?IR=T). This direction has only
been a modest success. For a bootstrapped company it would have been
completely fine to go on like that indefinitely, but for a VC investment heavy
one, this - or any other - sale must have been in the making since the hopes
of an IPO have clearly disappeared.

One thing the article doesn't mention is that this aquisition makes a lot of
sense for IBM. They get access to a lot of businesses who host their internal
video streaming on UStream, like Facebook (company update videos all running
on it). Also the main UStream engineering office is in Budapest, Hungary,
where there is a large IBM office as well, so that will make integration
smoother.

UStream employees who joined to disrupt the startup consumer video space a
couple years back - welcome to IBM. I hope you've gotten some handsome payouts
or golden handcuffs - and congratulations.

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StephenSmith
It just seems like IBM is always 5-10 years behind where they should be.

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rdtsc
> It just seems like IBM is always 5-10 years behind where they should be.

What do you think they should be doing that's modern, cool and not 5-10 years
behind?

Unikernels? X-for-Y services ( Uber for dogs )?

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discodave
IBM should have built AWS before Amazon did.

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matwood
And they still would have lost to Amazon as they would have priced it such
that no one except the government and extra large companies could pay the
bill.

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Mazy
Ustream is the first place I worked, exciting to see this news

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namelezz
Not sure though layoffs may come after IBM acquisitions.

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greglindahl
That depends on how strong the business is -- blekko didn't lay off any
engineers when we were purchased by IBM Watson. We did lay off marketing/biz
dev folks related to the business we were no longer in. It all made good
sense.

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a_thro_away
SpaceX broadcasts on UStream were not viewable on Firefox/Flash on Fedora. A
known problem, tech support said too bad, use Chrome. I get it, it was not
high on their list. What are the odds of it now? (Only a cursory look, it
didn't appear they supported anything other than Flash)

