...and the little one said - rollover, rollover. 3 PE companies are in the bidding now for xNDS. Who knows which will win but they HAVE all written down their numbers on a hidden ticket. Now Cisco is counting them up. Let's hope it is a company with the skills to put it back where it was as the worlds number 1 PayTV Services and Security Company. The three are P, M and ????
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Will Technicolor buy us?!
Cancer is harsh. I prefer Ebola.
I wouldn’t worry too about carrying the tumours with you - there’s every chance that potential buyers will have met these clowns and therefore will have an accurate assessment of their characters and capabilities. Scrutiny of financials will reveal a lot.
“Wait, what, you have how many people working on this IVP sh--? And your total revenue has been what? And how many DECADES will it take you to break even?”
The reason it is taking so long...? is because the cancer that killed NDS wants to come with the patient - hanging on for grim life, TB, DangerMouse and the lot of them. They are grimly negotiating their own golden parachutes while pittling on the rest of you. Whoever buys xNDS has to rid themselves of these sponging mouth-breathers or they will drag them down. Ask yourself - would you want to buy a diseased sheep? No - you would at least want the rotten meat cut off before purchase.
I had to laugh at the CC "strategy guy" proclomation "this is our ‘cloudiest’ and ‘most agile’ project”.
Meaning "There's some buzzwords for you - now go away and work out how we can avoid doing the engineering needed" - presumably by cobbling together what we have already (to be fair NDS was also very guilty of this, but more in an environment of customers with ambitious ideas but limited budgets).
So Cisco protect profit margins by cutting overheads, deliver something sub-standard that the customer you were providing it for can surpass on their own.
Keep in mind that CC was the VP of “Strategy” and put all the eggs in the “Infinite” basket, insisting that all customers would want exactly the same thing, and that somehow, dev ops and agile were going to overcome product and engineering deficiencies. He once asked me directly why we needed to test then integration with the customer since “this is our ‘cloudiest’ and ‘most agile’ project” as if where the computers sat and what dev methodology was employed somehow eliminated the inputs and outputs to their network. He never had any head for execution realities.
And he had the bad luck to try to roll out a deficient, late product at the same time as CMCST turned from customer to competitor, with a much better offering, and then compounded the problem by making bad deals to insert some Cisco stuff into the X1 ecosystem (RPIL).
As for YK, she had a good year and had formed a decent leadership team and then the unexpectedly high profits from China DTH convinced the Cisco ELT she was a star, and she got moved up a level, and all the good VSS momentum collapsed when CC, was, um, boy, thrust into a leadership role he was um, boy, um, not suited for, and had no back up plan for capturing with the lower tier markets once X1 took over all the viable top customers.
It would be a really interesting B-school study about over-optimism, poor execution, and misreading the market.
And once the golden handcuffs are off they will be back at Cisco like a shot
That's it. world domination is guaranteed. the spun-off SPVSS will be bigger than Netflix . after all it is run by the best of the best with so much agility they're escaping velocity, who can stop THAT?
So Lawrenceville be affected?
Lawrenceville is buying Comcast
Comcast - we're vital to Sky - please buy us!
Not sure if that'll be Lawrenceville as well
Will Lawrenceville be affected? I don't know
Will Lawrenceville be affected?
no news?
She was talking about friends not the plebs in the BU
I don’t know why you moaning d---s think that Cisco isn’t committed to the future of its video BU. Yvette told you that she loved what you guys are doing - isn’t that enough?
Anyone who listens to their VP/Director will know that things are going well - so stop looking for trouble. You’re in the family, you have the People Deal and so Cisco will take care of you.
Dear buyer. You already know this. But don’t touch any of the SPVSS management. They’re not what you want.
@RDbmQG9-cqlj true. If what was rumored that the Seachange Mafia wrote themselves into the sale so they wouldn't lose their jobs then what has changed? Same old clowns running the show and now not under Cisco
Whoever does will likely have a hard time getting rid of the persistent TB that comes with it. A lot of Cisco cancer needs to be cut out before it could be a success again
i just can’t be bothered anymore. Goodnight
Wrong
I think this is the last post in this thread. See ya guys 3 months later.
Except management where the rewards are unlimited for failure
@RDbmQG9-8urk good points, but you do sound like that breed of over entitled manager that NDS-UK seemed to specialize in!
I agree that NDS wasn't very uniform in policy - a fact that the company had grown out of different regions and merged. Cisco is a lot more consistent in this area, almost everyone is treated with the bare minimum they can get away with - think of the margins!
When NDS is free of Cisco, once again our thick client middleware will be admired, our OTT solution invested in, and our "smart card" encryption feared.
Either that or we'll get broken up and sold off to the vested interests that depended on us - given where we are that would probably do to be honest.
Maybe try supermarket sweep
While Cisco reported 3% revenue growth in the December quarter, some analysts said more acquisitions are needed to complete a turnaround.
Go get Nagra and make "SPVSS" great again!!!
Osterley TV, I had to google it. How $$ are those Sky packages? Kosher tech dont come cheap.
@RDbmQG9-7ckl. Most x-NDS people?
Here in the UK Cisco is a better employer than NDS in many ways and most ex-NDS do not want to be sold.
Working from home was rarely permitted with NDS, even for the sales guys. Many ex-NDS have sold their homes and now live hundreds of miles away from the office. Their quality of life would be severely impacted if Cisco sold us. No other company would allow them to pop in twice a year and then allow them to claim mileage/petrol for driving to the office.
The only ex-NDS UK staff to be worse off under Cisco are those ex-pats who worked overseas, they lost out big time when Cisco ripped up their meal tickets.
Other countries might have got a better deal with NDS but I can't think of any apart from Israel. They would love to go back to their NDS Israel travel policy allowing business class flights and Hilton Park Lane hotel stays when working at Osterley. NDS was the only company I know where your Israeli direct report travelled business class everywhere while you, their manager, had to slum it in cattle class.
Cisco is a great company but their management of this Business Unit is a farce, the current leadership have reverted to type and made some disastrous decisions. Some of the best talent in the business has been LR'ed and closing the Paris office showed zero understanding of the business and how customers perceive us (was CC the scapegoat for that one?). Hopefully we are not sold and Cisco sees sense and generously performs a lobotomy on on the ex-SeaChange mafia. It needs a different kind of sea change at the top to turn this BU around before it crashes and burns. PE is not the answer, sound leadership is.
7ckl1 touch a raw nerve there?
Cisco is not a performance based company. Care about accountability? Go to another company. Now back to making my high-functioning alcoholic manager look competent.
If NDS was a sh1t company then Cisco are morons for wasting $5bn on it.
If NDS was a great company that Cisco broke then Cisco are morons...
D’you see the common element?
Which Cisco genius is going to be accountable?
More lighthouses deals yeah! Now a lighthouse has real girth ...
7xrg. Your grammar is bad. As you acquire greater maturity you will realise that this makes your argument appear weak.
@everyone-else
Most xNDS people are desperate to get sold. They hate working for Cisco because it’s a bad company.
I think NDS and SA where a great fit. Both crap technically...won't shed any tears when the inevitable happens.
Nothing about layoffs in the earnings call. Share price took big +ve jump in after hours trading.
Consume facts before posting idle gossip!
I think Wall street analysts will give us a "strong Buy" once a massive layoff is announced in the earnings conf call.
Good post @6juc
Some things for y’all to think about
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You know that the “dying CA model” is paying for the investment in IVP/IH/IV/Videoscape?
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How much actual profit has come from any of that sh1t?
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What is the annual cost of IVP?
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How many customers are there?
someone bleats about lots of happy customers
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FTS, I don’t mean “lighthouse” customers, I mean the ones that are actually giving actual money for the joy of having Cisco Cloud Better Than Broadcast or whatever nonsense is being used to describe it today.
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How much of the VSS leadership will survive being purchased? Do any of them have any actual skills?
Actually that’s not fair. The CTO is quite good. He’s doing a good job of directing the technical strategy to ensure business grows, and he’s well respected as a great leader.
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How’s the outsourced business turned out?
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if you say “The SPVSS” it’s obvious that you’re from Israel, no one else talks like that
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Lawrenceville is getting burned to the ground
Nothing about video on the earnings call...
was a pretty poor company in 2 years leading up to acquisition. Business couldn't see the direction (still too wedded to dying CA market model). Can anyone say CD/GET? Still wonder around the Jerusalem office, and wonder what could have been?