Following on from this week's news about Spanish mobile entertainment provider Zed acquiring UK publisher Player X, we caught up with Zed's corporate project management director Diego Conforti to find out some more about the reasons behind the deal, and what happens next.
We started out asking why Player X was a good fit for Zed, notably in terms of how it filled gaps in its content portfolio.
"Player X is a specialised company in terms of gaming and its operator portal management experience," Conforti said. "As well as games, it also has mobile TV and video and that sort of media content can be merged with our existing facilities."
Indeed he said the market for mobile video and TV was an area Zed would be investigating further. "It's a very interesting line of business for operators and we can see the demand for this type of service is starting to grow," he commented. "We have the distribution channels to test this with operators around the world."
More generally, Conforti stressed the Player X deal, together with others Zed has completed, was all about increasing the company's scale in the global market.
"Economics of scale are very important in this type of business, but the battle is how you handle mobile content, not so much about just having content. The management, marketing and business skills required to sell content to the end user is more important.
As for what happens to Player X, Conforti expects the brand will continue. "We are only in the early stages at the moment, but I think there is great value in the Player X name, especially in terms of games," he predicted.
As for the company, things will remain as they are, at least for the time being.
"We will continue with the managers but there will be an integration phase and that's where we focus on the synergies between the companies. We'll see what the best solution is in terms of combining everything together," he explained.
For example Zed already has a London office, so one obvious step would be to combine geographical locations.
Conforti said this wasnt an immediate plan. "If global business was easy, we'd have a central office and supply the whole world that way. But it's a lot more complicated, he said. For me, the integration of companies is the fun part of the job. If it was simple, people wouldn't need people like me!"
Interview
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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