Adobe Systems acquired privately held Auditude, a provider of video-ad management technologies, as the company looks to help content more effectively pull in advertising dollars from TV Everywhere and other IP video services.
Terms of the deal, announced Tuesday, were not disclosed. Adobe paid about $100 million for Auditude, GigaOm reported.
Adobe plans to integrate the Auditude ad-management software with the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite for analytics and marketing optimization. That will extend Adobe's broader video-delivery portfolio, which centers around Flash Media Server 4.5 software and the Adobe Pass authentication system for TV Everywhere services.
"With this acquisition, Adobe can now offer an unparalleled platform for authoring, distributing, analyzing and monetizing digital video experiences everywhere -- simplifying workflows, increasing consumer engagement, delivering insights and driving increased revenue for content publishers," David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager of Adobe's Digital Media Business Unit, said in announcing the deal.
The deal has TV Everywhere implications, according to industry consultant and VideoNuze editor Will Richmond. "A longer term benefit of the deal is that by integrating Auditude with Adobe Pass -- which has quickly become the leader in TV Everywhere authentication -- Adobe stands to gain as content offered by cable networks to multiple devices ramps up and needs to be monetized," he wrote in a blog post.
Auditude raised $38 million from Redpoint Ventures, Greylock Partners and Granite Ventures. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company was founded in 1999. Customers include Comcast; Major League Baseball; Viacom's Comedy Central, MTV, BET and Nickelodeon; Warner Bros. Entertainment; and News Corp.'s MySpace.
The Auditude platform's features include ad-targeting capabilities; sales rights management; access to and control of incremental advertising demand; and cross-device workflow.
