Sony Records A Major Stake In iFrame Video

25-Apr-00

Entertainment and electronics giant Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) has grabbed a 19.9 percent stake in Reston, Virginia-based digital video applications and services company iFrame Video Inc., which announced the launch of its video services and applications product line. iFrame Video's spokespersons said that Sony's investment, quantified as 19.9 percent, represents the video concern's first institutional round of funding. Washington Investment Partners also kicked in an undisclosed amount. iFrame Video is already getting an undisclosed amount in its second and current financing round, which should be finished in the next month and a half, the spokespersons added. As a result of the investment, Sony gained two seats on the video company's board, and the two businesses expect to announce several partnerships in the near future, the spokespersons said. The new funds will be pumped into research and development, as well as sales and marketing, for the company's new product line. The company hopes to eventually offer an initial public offering of its stock, though now it's concentrating on rolling out its product and services, the spokespersons added. In a separate announcement today, iFrame Video unveiled its product line that will provide digital video applications to Web sites in search of consumer digital video solutions and full-screen high-quality video services to broadband users. With iFrame Video's proprietary Video Interactive Service Technology and Applications (VISTA) infrastructure, Web site owners and content providers can offer robust video services to their consumers and end users, officials said. iFrame Video supports Quick Time, Real Video, and Windows Media, as well as MPEG 1, 2 and 4 and AVI formats. The company's consumer video line entails a customer-branded service that provides the ability for consumers to store, edit and share video captured through digital video and digital still cameras with burst capabilities. The services also include custom applications such as: video clip art, video clubs, video greetings, video shaker and similar applications designed for manipulation, editing and dissemination of a consumers personal video. An analog to DVD service enables consumers to digitize and manipulate existing videotapes (Hi8, VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, DV and MiniDV) and burns their videos to a DVD. And the consumer opt-in customizable application ""vCommerce"" provides a downloadable applet to customers' desktop for receiving real-time information on products and services in a high quality video format. Source: Washtech.com