Second Irish firm enters licensing partnership with Microsoft

A second Irish company is to collaborate with Microsoft to license and further develop technology that Microsoft's research labs have developed but will not be used in Microsoft products.

Under Microsoft's year old Intellectual Properties (IP) Ventures programme, Vimio plc, a Dublin-based developer of mobile media content distribution solutions, is to utilise Microsoft's video optimisation technology in its own products.

"We will be able to commercialise more products more quickly. In essence this is a licensing partnership. but it accelerates our product roll-out and means we can work very closely with Microsoft's development labs," said Malachy Harkin, chief executive, Vimio. In February, Dublin company SoftEdge was the first company worldwide to partner with Microsoft through IP Ventures, an unusual venture through which Microsoft offers a portfolio of its intellectual property (IP) to national development agencies.

The agencies - in the case of Vimio and SoftEdge, Enterprise Ireland - act as marriage brokers between IP Ventures' available IP - basically, source code for projects that Microsoft itself will not commercialise or utilise, but believes to have commercial potential - and the companies on their books.

About 10 such deals have now been arranged globally, said David Harnett, senior director, IP Ventures.

Through the partnership, Vimio will use technology developed in Microsoft's Beijing research lab that allows mobile video to be delivered to a handset at a consistent quality even if the signal - and hence, the available bandwidth for content delivery - fluctuates.

Vimio will also be able to collaborate with researchers at Microsoft's Cambridge Research Lab.

Vimio was spun out of Sweden's University of Umea and continues to work closely with researchers specialising in mobile applications there, said Harkin.

"The companies got together because the Vimio model of bringing technology to market really fits our model. They're used to bringing research to market," saidMr Harnett. He said there was a "perfect fit" between Vimio's products and the Beijing lab's technology.

Mr Harnett said that while the specifics of the deal could not be discussed, Microsoft would share in the profits of any technology successfully marketed by Vimio, but receives nothing if the technology isn't successfully commercialised.

Vimio to date has focused on forging deals in the Middle East and Pacific rim regions, where populations have good disposable incomes and where high mobile network standards ensure TV can be delivered to mobiles.

"We're identifying niche applications in certain commercial markets," said Harkin.

He said the company is turning its focus on the North American and European markets as well.