2019 has already been a busy year for industry mergers, acquisitions and funding rounds. In January, Accedo raised $17m in equity to drive growth; Sky took a stake in Synamedia (which itself was created last year from the sale of Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions business) and RTL Group acquired Yospace. Last week, Seachange bought Xstream and then Brightcove announced that it was acquiring Ooyala’s online video platform business. 

“As part of the transaction,” said the press release, “Brightcove will acquire substantial portions of Ooyala’s engineering, support, and sales staff, including the company’s Guadalajara, Mexico operations. Brightcove intends to take on all customer, reseller, and partner relationships utilized by Ooyala’s OVP business globally.“

What the release didn’t tell us, however, was whether the deal included the jewel in Ooyala’s crown, its Flex Media Platform, which markets the new expanded company would target and how the acquisition might affect the combined Brightcove / Ooyala workforce. Mike Green, Brightcove’s VP of Product Marketing, answered some of these questions via email to me yesterday. Here are his responses, lightly edited. 

1. Is Ooyala’s Flex Media Platform part of the acquisition? 

No, Ooyala Flex is not part of this acquisition. Brightcove is acquiring Ooyala’s OVP technology, including Ooyala’s video content management and publishing platform Backlot, Analytics, Live, and its underlying IP and associated patents. 

2. How many customers does Ooyala bring with it? How many of these are traditional broadcast or media companies?

 Ooyala has tremendous global customers who understand the power of video and its ability to transform business and reach new customers. With this acquisition, Brightcove’s intent is to acquire a number of important media customers from around the world. Companies that Ooyala publicly have shared as OVP customers, like Tribune Broadcasting or Arsenal are brands that are well known for video leadership. 

3. Is it fair to say that Brightcove / Ooyala will be focusing less on this market – broadcasters, film studios, operators and service-providers – in the future?

Ooyala’s customer base is heavy with media and entertainment customers that complement the roster of M&E customers that Brightcove has like Crash Media, Italiaonline, and UKTV.  This deepens our penetration and commitment to that market segment while enhancing the breadth of team and support to continue to serve all of our customer segments.

4. Will there, instead, be a greater focus on enterprise customers?

There will be no change in our go to market and market segmentation strategy based on the acquisition of Ooyala’s OVP business.

5. Ooyala had a number of sports-related customers (rights-holders etc.). Is that a market that Brightcove will continue to service and indeed, seek to expand its customer base in?

Brightcove intends to take on all customer relationships utilized by Ooyala’s OVP business globally and provide them with the same outstanding support and service as we do for all existing Brightcove customers. We look forward to working with Ooyala’s customers on the best path forward as they plan their future with the OVP market leader.  In sports, Brightcove is pleased to have a range of leading organizations running our technology and the addition of the Ooyala brands in that segment strengthens our market position.

6. Finally, Brightcove’s main engineering teams are based in Boston whereas Ooyala’s are in Mexico. Does Brightcove anticipate cutting part of the American workforce and offshoring to Mexico?

There are no plans to move jobs from the US to Mexico. Brightcove’s goal is to further develop and strengthen our global workforce, and being able to tap into the Mexico talent pool will add to this ability, helping us drive innovation faster.