Internet Solutions acquires Antfarm
According to Greg Montjoie, executive connectivity and carrier of IS, video content will be the key driver of the Internet economy over the next few years. "Streaming media services, particularly video content, are growing at double-digit growth rates, both in the consumer and business space."
This statement is confirmed by figures released by Cisco, in the Cisco Visual Networking Index 2013. According to the Index, there will be nearly two billion internet video users globally, excluding mobile only, by 2017, up from one billion internet video users in 2012. Of this, video will account for 58% of all business-related internet traffic in 2017, up from 31% in 2012, according to Cisco. The Index also states that business internet video traffic will experience a 5.3-fold increase from 2012 to 2017, with content delivery networks set to carry over half of total Internet traffic by 2017.
"With this kind of exponential growth forecast a strategic acquisition of this nature was necessary to gain a significant advantage in the local industry," he continued. "In addition, given the direction and speed at which the market is moving, both companies felt that we could achieve more through an acquisition than merely maintaining the status quo in our established working relationship."
Existing synergies
Further strengthening the case for the deal, a number of synergies already existed between the two companies, according to Montjoie. "Antfarm's ability to generate, digitise and monetise this content, and our ability to provision network and computing infrastructure on demand in an elastic manner through our data centre network, as well as our bandwidth capabilities, are two skill sets that perfectly complement each other. Our ability to tap into the resources and expertise offered by our parent companies, NTT and Dimension Data, will also ensure that we play a leading role in the local media streaming space going forward."
Andrew Aitken, sales and marketing director of Antfarm, explained that the acquisition is also strategically important for the company, as it gives it the ability to expand aggressively by leveraging IS' cloud and network infrastructure.
"Since launching in 2000, Antfarm has pioneered streaming technology and its use in South Africa, despite the bandwidth restraints in the country," continued Aitken. "Our aim since launching has been to enable any organisation, be it media broadcasters, corporations, the government or academic institutions, to share rich media content over internal networks or over the Internet, be it live or on-demand, to communicate its message to anyone, anywhere."
Suite of products developed
To deliver these capabilities Antfarm has developed a suite of products to ensure the delivery of an organisation's online broadcasting requirements, be they audio or video.
Aitken also believes that this mutually beneficial partnership has additional spin-offs for his company. "The ability to leverage IS' significant cloud infrastructure and its established MPLS VPN network to distribute recorded content on-demand adds significant value to our ecosystem and significantly boosts our reach, both locally and globally, especially into Africa. As a rapidly growing company it would take us a lot longer to achieve this scale of growth organically, so the acquisition will enable us to accelerate our growth strategy exponentially."
"We are extremely excited about what the future holds for both companies following the acquisition as we're now well positioned to meet the rapidly growing demand for these services from existing and potential customers," concluded Montjoie.
Antfarm's brand, operations, structure, management and staff will remain unchanged following the acquisition, and the company will continue to serve its current customers from its Pretoria head office.
