Omneon sold to Harmonic for $274m

Under the terms of the agreement, Harmonic will pay $190m in cash for the privately owned company and issue 17.1m shares.

The proposed acquisition will see Harmonic’s video delivery infrastructure combined with Omneon’s server technology for the production, management and distribution of digital media.

Omneon’s customer base includes the BBC, BSkyB and Discovery.

Patrick Harshman, the chief executive of Harmonic, said: “This proposed combination will position Harmonic to become a global leader in video infrastructure for the digital media industry.

“With our deep customer relationships with content producers and service providers, and with our market leading technologies that span content acquisition through delivery, we believe that our combined company will be uniquely positioned to capitalize on these trends and to accelerate revenue growth.”

For the year ended December 31, 2009, Omneon’s revenues were approximately $105 million, of which 67% were outside the United States, with no single customer representing more than 10% of total revenue.

Omneon employs 280 people worldwide.

The combined company will have a global R&D organization of 450 engineers, a combined global sales and service organization of 330 people and a network of over 250 global sales channel partners.

The majority of the Omneon executive management team is expected to join Harmonic.