Reading, England, March 27th 2002 - Tao Group today announced that it has acquired SSEYO, a global technology leader in wireless interactive audio, in a move that clearly shows Tao's increasing technology leadership and creates major commercial benefits for its customers.
Tao's intent(R) software platform is already recognized as the leading multimedia engine for client devices. It has worldwide leadership in
graphics and Java engine capabilities, with major design-wins across products such as phones, PDAs and set-top boxes. Tao's technologies are at the heart of the OCPA, a global standards body with more than sixty
members, most of them blue chip technology companies, and the OCPA is supporting intent as a common contents platform for consumer devices.
SSEYO has the most sophisticated and flexible audio solution for the same market and won the BAFTA 2001 Interactive Entertainment Award for Technical Innovation.
The combination now means that Tao will have the very best in both sound and graphics, and can offer even stronger solutions to the OCPA as they deliver a solution that will generate further global leadership. Audio, whilst already extremely important in Tao's markets, will become increasingly critical in the mobile space over the next 18 months in client devices as the interactive services mature from carriers. This pre-emptive strike by Tao means that it has positioned itself perfectly to benefit both itself and its customers from the highly advanced technologies developed by SSEYO's world-class engineering team that will now operate out of Tao headquarters.
Toru Chiba, Group Deputy General Manager of Sharp's Corporate R&D Group said, "The merging of SSEYO with Tao is extremely important. SSEYO has wonderful engineers and technologies so now the intent platform is going to have the very best in Java(TM) technologies, sound and graphics all on a single software solution. Tao is positioned more strongly than ever to have a substantial impact on the global market."
Brian Eno, the award-winning musician, producer and artist commented "The Tao/SSEYO merger will create new opportunities for musicians, artists and mobile phone developers. SSEYO's new vector audio technology can produce high-quality audio from very small amounts of data and Koan's proven music engine offers users a whole new level of interactivity."
Francis Charig, Executive Chairman of Tao Group: "Tao and SSEYO have been collaborating on a suite of audio libraries that will be every bit
as powerful as the graphics libraries for which Tao has become ustifiably globally respected. In other words, we will introduce a combinded
graphics and sound system that will enable carriers and broadcasters to deliver more powerful and exciting services for consumers and the capability for manufacturers to create unique products as they strive to maximize their differentiation and profitability."
Tim Cole, Co-Founder and Director of SSEYO, who will now be working on the development of the audio markets for Tao, said "Tao and SSEYO created a close relationship over a period of two years, so we already have the experience of knowing that we have the necessary cultural similarities that make mergers work and there is strong mutual respect. Since I first met with Francis at the end of 1999 I have recognized that Tao is perfectly positioned for the emerging markets, and I passionately
believe that the integration of SSEYO and Tao will create a very powerful whole."
