Pioneer and Spruce sign DVD authoring deal.........
Pioneer North America and Spruce Technologies Sign DVD Strategic
Alliance; DVD Industry Leader Pioneer Taps Spruce for Next Generation
DVD Authoring Technology
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 29, 1998--Spruce Technologies, Inc. and Pioneer North America today
announced the formation of a strategic alliance to advance the development of future generation DVD authoring solutions.
The two companies will partner in many areas relating to DVD. Pioneer has also taken a significant equity position in Spruce.
According to Pioneer, "Spruce's DVDMaestro(TM) represents the future of DVD in which the complexity of DVD authoring
is masked by a sophisticated, intelligent application. This is precisely what the market, particularly the corporate market, wants
and needs if it is to grow. Pioneer has long been an innovator in DVD technology and its recordable DVD-R system has
helped fuel the significant growth in the corporate sector. Spruce's demonstrated ability to bring sophisticated, easy-to-use
authoring systems to market quickly is vital to helping make DVD authoring an accessible technology, thereby enabling the
market to reach its fullest potential."
The cooperation between the two companies will include marketing and distribution opportunities, future product development
and tighter interfaces between the two companies' products.
"This new funding is a resounding endorsement of the direction Spruce has been going, both in terms of technology and as a
company," says Dr. Hiromu Soga, founder and CEO of Spruce. "Spruce has tapped into what the DVD market needs to
grow -- sophisticated DVD authoring power in an easy-to-use package. Pioneer's support sends a strong message to the
market that Spruce is a major player in DVD with the resources to provide the long-term support customers are looking for.
Spruce will continue developing future generations of authoring systems while the rest of the market now struggles to bring
outdated products up to the sophistication of our current product."
Pioneer's equity investment caps a period of rapid growth for Spruce, whose DVDMaestro is the most mature DVD
authoring system available for Windows NT-based PCs. This growth period included Spruce's acquisition of Digital Video
Products Group (previously part of CagEnt Technologies, Inc.).
The acquisition expanded Spruce's products to include MPEGXpress(TM), a PCI-based, high performance, real-time
MPEG-2 encoder for video and MPEG audio, and ACXpress(TM), the first affordable Dolby Digital (AC-3) encoding
system on a PCI Card. Spruce recently moved into new expanded headquarters to support these growing operations.
DVD is a major strategic focus within the Pioneer group of companies. Pioneer is one of the major global forces in the DVD
sector, providing DVD services including publishing and replication, as well as DVD equipment including authoring systems,
consumer and industrial players, DVD-ROM drives and the only DVD-R recorder currently available.
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