It seems that Sling Media is about to be acquired for the
princely sum of approximately $380 Million.
Dave Zatz is reporting that
Echostar Communications Company, the people known for its Dish Network
Satellite TV will be shelling out that amount for the company.
Sling Media is the maker of the Slingbox and
Slingplayer
which allow you to placeshift your TV programming from your home across
the internet to allow you to view that content anywhere there is an
internet connection.
Any time an innovative company like Sling
Media is purchased by a larger media/distribution company there are
concerns about the future path of that innovative company and this will
be no exception.
Blake Krikorian Quotes
Still Blake Krikorian, the CEO of Sling
Media said
this in an interview with the Paid Content weblog:
“We expect very little change to our business
except that we have even deeper pockets, and access to other core
technologies.”
Here’s what he said regarding why they are selling to Echostar:
“With
EchoStar, we’d gotten to know them, to know Charlie. Charlie
is one of
the real pioneers. He’s a guy who helped build an entire
industry, he’s
a founder, he’s an entrepreneur. Clearly, there’s a
lot I can learn
from him.He understands us … He knows what it’s like to
be
this
passionate about what you do. I’m very confident that the
position
we’re being put in here, the opportunity being provided us is
one that
will only accelerate what we’re building.”
Conclusions
This should
be interesting to watch. Its interesting that Echostar is
interested
in Sling Media and will be even more interesting to see what they plan
to do with Sling Media.
Echostar also announced that they were considering a spin-off
of their technology and infrastructure assets from the Dish Network
U.S. consumer business.
This would leave the pay-TV Dish
Network in
the existing company and the remainder of the assets, presumably
including Sling Media’s in a separate spin-off.
This article was written by Brent Evans, a tech & gadget enthusiast. It is licensed under the Creative Commons.
