Oslo-based DRM vendor Beep Science has been acquired by US security
technology company SafeNet. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed,
was signed a couple of months ago (without publicity) and closed last week. Beep Science's team will join SafeNet offices in Helsinki,
Amsterdam, and other European locations. Beep Science's client and server
technology for OMA DRM will complement SafeNet's existing DRM server software
business, which it
acquired from DMDSecure in 2005.
SafeNet has made a string of acquisitions in recent years, including
antipiracy service provider
MediaSentry,
also in 2005. The company started in the 1980s as an enterprise security
technology vendor and has essentially become a roll-up.
Its acquisition of
Beep Science makes sense from the standpoint of filling gaps in its product
line. SafeNet has DRM server software (DRM Fusion) that supports multiple
DRMs, including OMA DRM as well as Microsoft Windows Media DRM, and it has
considerable expertise in core security technology for consumer device hardware.
It counts Samsung, TI, and AMD as customers for the latter. With Beep
Science, SafeNet will get both DRM client software and expertise in integrating
DRM capabilities with consumer devices. It is now able to sell
end-to-end DRM technologies to consumer electronics companies.
The risk in this deal is that Beep Science is exclusively an OMA DRM
technology company, so its success is predicated on the future of OMA DRM,
particularly OMA DRM 2.0. Although OMA DRM 1.0 has a very large installed
base in mobile handsets worldwide, the number of services that have actually
deployed OMA DRM 2.0 today is very small. SafeNet expects growth in OMA DRM 2.0
adoption to come in the mobile gaming, mobile broadcast, and e-book spaces, all
of which will take some time to develop. It had not been possible for the
small, monolithic Beep Science to wait around for OMA DRM 2.0 to take hold in
environments like OMA BCast DRM Profile for DVB-H, but a larger and more diverse company like SafeNet can afford to look to a longer time horizon for its revenue.
Still, mobile DRM is an uncertain and fragmented market, even where it is
eventually adopted; several technologies are in play, including Microsoft's
PlayReady, Marlin, SDC, and potentially Apple's FairPlay in addition to OMA DRM
2.0. It remains to be seen whether SafeNet can successfully integrate Beep
Science's technologies with the ones it already has and translate that into
opportunities that meet the needs of this ever-changing market.
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