Amino acquires Tilgin for hybrid STBs, European focus

Amino Communications, an IPTV hardware manufacturer, has agreed to acquire Sweden-based Tilgin AB’s set-top box (STB) division to bolster its support for hybrid STBs and let Tilgin focus on its residential gateway business.

Tilgin, which has shipped nearly 500,000 STBs to date, primarily supplies customers in Europe and overlaps little with Amino’s existing customer base, according to Roy Kirsopp, Amino’s vice president and general manager. As such, Amino plans to use the acquisition to strengthen its European presence as well as its relationship with key middleware partners, including Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. The acquisition will also give Amino access to Tilgin’s Mood product line of H.264 HD IPTV STBs. The combined company will focus on developing common STMicroelectronics-based STBs and introducing new features, such as picture-in-picture, whole-home connectivity and green power.

“Tilgin has some strength in certain technology areas, both software and hardware, and we have some strengths in software and hardware, and we see the combination of the two would actually be beneficial to both parties,” Kirsopp said. “We are looking to try to combine the strengths of both to produce something even stronger.”

Amino has been the worldwide leader in the pure IPTV STB market for the past three years, according to ABI Research. The manufacturer has been experimenting with adding hybrid STBs to its product portfolio for those larger telcos that often need a hybrid approach from day one, but to date it has only shipped pure set-tops. Tilgin, which makes terrestrial-satellite combined boxes, will allow Amino to expand into the hybrid market more quickly. Kirsopp said Amino was looking at early 2009 for customer trials and the end of 2009 for deployments but will have to review this timeline following the acquisition.