ROO has formed a tripartite business alliance with Abacast and Pando Networks to offer P2P streaming solutions to its current and future customers. The alliance will provide live streaming and VoD through the ROO Media Player. By combining forces with Abacast and Pando, ROO will be able to offer these P2P products as white-label solutions to its global network of customers increasing streaming quality while reducing associated bandwidth costs.
As part of the agreement, ROO has exclusive access to the technology of Abacast and Pando vis-a-vis certain of its direct competitors. The companies will work with ROO to integrate their respective technologies into the ROO Media Player environment to facilitate a seamless end-user experience offering both solutions through the single ROO client application.
The alliance is consistent with ROO's previously announced intentions to create content delivery network capabilities for its clients. Through the partnership, Abacast will supply its hybrid P2P/CDN solution for live streaming content while Pando will provide managed P2P distribution services for VoD content. Abacast and Pando have a combined installed base of approximately 62 million individual customers today, which in conjunction with the 1,100+ ROO Media Players currently deployed on the Internet will form the basis of ROO's newly formed hybrid CDN/P2P content delivery model.
The companies will immediately enter a technical integration phase, with live customer deployments of the combined solution expected by the end of the first quarter.