29 April 2008 — Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ: SNIC), the leader in digital media software, today announced it has acquired the assets of Simple Star, Inc., a privately held software products and online service provider based in San Francisco, California. Simple Star is the developer of PhotoShow™, a comprehensive multimedia storytelling platform and online community that enables consumers to quickly and easily turn personal photos and video clips into entertaining shows that can be enjoyed and shared on PCs, TVs, handhelds, or published to popular social media sites.
Over 13 million copies of the PhotoShow desktop software and flash-based online application have been installed since the product was first introduced in 2002. New installations now top 5 million a year. The product is broadly distributed through a network of major partners, including online photo providers Kodak, Shutterfly, and Snapfish, photofinishing service provider Ritz Camera, as well as cable operators Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Simple Star is further expanding its reach through its PhotoShow Developer Program, which provides APIs for easily integrating multimedia creation, playback and viral sharing tools into web offerings.
Last year the company launched PhotoShowTV™, a new service available through Time Warner Cable that enables cable customers to easily create and publicly broadcast their content directly to cable TV through their local on-demand service.
“With over 300 million copies of Roxio software distributed, Sonic has one of the largest installed bases of savvy digital media consumers in the world, and these consumers are always eager for new services and products,” said Matt DiMaria, general manager of the Roxio division of Sonic Solutions. “Simple Star provides us with innovative new products and web services that are a natural fit for our users and that will extend the reach of the Roxio brand beyond the desktop to online and cable offerings. Simple Star also brings to us a group of talented engineers and senior managers who will help us expand and diversify our product line.”
“When we founded Simple Star, our goal was clear - empower consumers to easily share their memories with the people they care about in new, entertaining ways,” said Chad Richard, Simple Star CEO. “The Roxio product line embodies this direction and philosophy, making this an ideal union. The combination of Simple Star and Roxio technologies puts Sonic in a tremendous position to take advantage of the convergence of PCs, the Web, digital TV and portable devices to define a complete ecosystem that will enable consumers to form unique and highly personalized digital media connections.”
