Rovi acquires Sonic Solutions for $720 million

Rovi Corp. has landed an early Christmas present, buying Sonic Solutions in a cash and stock deal worth $720 million. The deal will give Rovi another opportunity to get its program guides loaded onto connected devices, piggy-backing with Sonic's popular digital-media delivery platform RoxioNow platform, which it's already licensed to major retailers, movie studios and CE manufacturers. 

The RoxioNow technology is expected to be on over 30 million connected devices by June 2011. Sonic's DivX offering is distributed in over 350 million CE devices. The DivX player software has been downloaded over 100 million times per year and 500 million times cumulatively, and has had over 2.5 billion launches since 2009.

The deal will help Rovi leverage its guide software and metadata.

"Rovi and Sonic share a vision for the future of digital entertainment and how to deliver the best consumer experience possible," said Fred Amoroso, president and CEO of Rovi Corporation. "We believe Sonic has built an exciting portfolio that complements Rovi's TotalGuide as well as our broad portfolio of solutions. Together, we believe the two companies will be able to address the expanding digital entertainment market with unique capabilities that will bring enhanced value to consumers."

The agreement has been approved by both boards of directors, with Sonic Solutions to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rovi, subject to regulatory approvals.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Bloomberg report

Related Articles:
Sonic Solution's DivX TV adds content for LG devices
Sonic Solutions to deliver movie downloads for Sears, Kmart
Sonic Solutions scores another OTT win with Trident SoCs