Sony Buys Gracenote For $260M

Sony Corporation of America has signed a merger agreement with Gracenote. Sony will pay approximately $260 million "plus other contingent considerations". Gracenote’s existing business will continue to operate separately and the senior management team will remain with the company.

"Gracenote is a global leader in technology and services for digital media identification, enrichment, and recommendation, and these capabilities will be essential to the next wave of innovation…

in content, services, and consumer electronics," said Tim Schaaff, SCA
Senior Vice President, Software." …By
broadly embracing Gracenote’s platforms, Sony expects to significantly
enhance and accelerate its own digital content, service, and device
initiatives.

Gracenote is a leader in embedded technology, enriched content, and data services for digital entertainment. Gracenote customers include iTunes, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Winamp; home and automotive products from Alpine, Panasonic, Philips and Sony; mobile music applications from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Europe), and others. Gracenote is headquartered in Emeryville, California.

"We are very pleased to join Sony as its strategic vision is very much in line with our own," said Craig Palmer, Gracenote CEO. "Having a closer connection with the content and digital services community will accelerate adoption of Gracenote technologies, and the relationship will also give us the resources necessary to rapidly expand development of next generation products for the industry."