ATI invested in Quadrant, I knew I read this somewhere...
Quadrant Nets Funds, Stronger ATI Ties
06/08/98
Multimedia Week
(c) 1998 Phillips Business Information, Inc.
In the last month, Quadrant International Inc. completed an $18 million financing round and will use the funds to raise its profile among PC OEMs, Multimedia Week has learned. Of strategic importance was an equity stake taken by ATI Technologies Inc., a chip company forging closer ties with Quadrant, which sells DVD software decoders and add-in cards. Patricof & Co. led the financing round, which also included CSK Venture Capital. "We're looking at ways to use them as a distribution channel," said Leonard Sharp, Quadrant's vice president of sales and marketing. Late last month ATI announced a licensing deal whereby the company purchased Quadrant's Software CineMaster 98 decoder. ATI will offer the software, which it has branded as the ATI DVD Player, as a stand-alone product for $10 and also bundle it with the Rage Pro Turbo graphics accelerator. Quadrant plans to leverage ATI ties to increase its market profile with the hope of staking out a bigger claim for software and hardware-based DVD decoding products. In addition to the software decoder, the company is selling a card based on C-Cube Microsystems Inc.'s [CUBE] Ziva PC decoder called Hardware CineMaster 98. Both products work with Windows 98 and share the same interface. By offering OEMs two options to meet their DVD decoding needs, Sharp believes Quadrant has an advantage over other component suppliers. He said in the last two weeks the company has signed orders from three companies who have yet to announce product. Look for some of those companies to debut their Quadrant-enabled wares at PC Expo next week in New York.
Beyond DVD
But PC OEMs are only market Quadrant is addressing. The Malvern, Pa.-based company is looking to sell its integration expertise to chip manufacturers. "If we can get involved early in the development stage we can do a reference board and that can lead to royalties," Sharp said. "That's going to be a bigger part of our business." To its credit, Quadrant was instrumental in building a Motion JPEG reference design for Zoran Corp. [ZRAN] that became available in April 1997. Other areas of interest to Quadrant are digital TV for the PC and satellite technology. Last March the company completed a proof-of-concept add-in card capable of displaying the 18 HDTV formats with the help of silicon from STMicroelectronics. [STM]. Quadrant is considering selling DTV peripherals when a market for such products develops. Quadrant also has been working behind the scenes on DSS satellite receiver technology with Adaptec Inc. [ADPT], providing the company with software algorithms that can handle various data streams. (Quadrant, 610/ 251-9999; ATI, 905/882-2600)
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