Samsung Buy Set Top Box Company Boxee

South Korean electronics giant Samsung is reportedly buying out the Israeli firm “Boxee” who make media streaming devices according to the BBC. The deal is reportedly worth around $30 million. Samsung stated that the takeover allowed it to acquire “key talent and assets” which “will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices”.

Boxee’s products let subscribers record TV shows onto cloud storage and then stream them to TVs, computers and smart devices from this cloud storage. Given that Samsung is struggling to shift a lot of its smart TVs this could be a wise move for them as Boxee has a well recognised and trusted reputation with its consumer base. Now Samsung doesn’t have to struggle to convince people to use its smart TV services over that of its competitors because it now owns one of its competitors.

Despite this Boxee did struggle to make money because smart TVs are in their infancy. The acquisition by Samsung will help the Boxee concept to stay alive until smart TVs pick up in popularity a bit more, which is expected to happen in 2017 when an estimated 221 million will ship according to Informa Telecoms and Media. Only 54 million were sold in 2012.

Image courtesy of Boxee