Front Porch Digital Acquires SAMMA Systems

Front Porch Digital has acquired New York-based SAMMA Systems. "While Front Porch Digital has offered our current broadcast customers near-line and online storage for many years, the largest collection of media in the world today is still stored on videotape," said Mike Knaisch, president and chief executive officer of Front Porch Digital. "Our acquisition of SAMMA is strategically planned to offer broadcasters, archiving facilities, and other content owners a new system uniquely capable of accessing all that stored content and of making it available in a cost-effective way.

"With more than 280 installations in more than 55 countries, Front Porch Digital serves the world's leading media brands -- those with the largest archives filled with the most content. There are more than 6 billion videocassettes in the world, 1 billion of them containing historic, important, and valuable content, representing more than 7,000 petabytes of high-value data stored only on videotape. An estimated five percent of this content is lost to deterioration each year, but the expense of digitizing it has proved prohibitive.

SAMMA, founded with the mission of saving the world's video heritage, brings unique expertise and proven preservation solutions to Front Porch Digital. Going forward, Front Porch Digital will provide an end-to-end solution for media past, present, and future on a scale not offered by anyone else in the world. In fact, the combination of SAMMA and Front Porch Digital has the potential to rapidly accelerate the migration of vulnerable videotape, and gives customers far more reliable, secure, and easy access to valuable content housed in digital storage.

Mark Gray, CEO of SAMMA Systems, will assume the role of executive vice president and general manager of the company's Americas division, reporting directly to Mike Knaisch. Jim Lindner, founder of SAMMA Systems, will continue in his role as evangelist and visionary in the preservation of A/V content.

Pagemill Partners, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., advised Front Porch Digital regarding the acquisition of SAMMA Systems.

Having merged operations with SAMMA, Front Porch provides an end-to-end solution for cost-effectively digitizing, accessing, and preserving media past, present, and future. Front Porch Digital now can accelerate migration of vulnerable videotape -- on an unprecedented, global scale -- to optimize and secure digital storage.

Source: BroadcastBuyer