Sony Corporation of America announced today that it has signed a merger agreement with Gracenote. Sony will pay approximately $260 million plus other contingent consideration.
"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 SVP, Software. "Sony sees tremendous growth potential in developing Gracenote as a separately run business unit, and by broadly embracing Gracenote's platforms, Sony expects to significantly enhance and accelerate its own digital content, service, and device initiatives."
Craig Palmer, Gracenote CEO said, "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."
Gracenote's existing business will continue to operate separately. As a wholly owned Sony subsidiary, Gracenote will continue to develop new technologies in existing as well as new areas of operation. The senior management team will remain with the company.
Sony and Gracenote anticipate that the transaction will close in late May, subject to certain regulatory and other approvals.
Gracenote is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within the Internet, consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets. Formerly known as CDDB, Gracenote delivers a substantially improved consumer experience in digital media devices and applications, plus media monitoring and other data services to the recording industry, making it an integral part of the digital media economy.
Gracenote powers leading services including Apple iTunes, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Winamp; home and automotive products from Alpine, Panasonic, Philips and Sony; and mobile music applications from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Europe), and others. Gracenote is headquartered in Emeryville, California. Information: www.gracenote.com/corporate
Sony Corporation of America is a New York-based U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo.
