United Business Media plc this month announced its acquisition of Portelligent Inc. on behalf of CMP Technology. CMP is United Business Media's U.S.-based marketing solutions business that serves the information technology industries.
Portelligent is a provider of teardown data and analyses of high volume portable consumer electronics products--from cellular phones to digital cameras. The company's teardown reports feature a structured overview of system features, a complete bill of materials, system architecture analyses and performance metric assessments. Portelligent has a database of more than 500 reports and adds more than 100 reports each year.
Customers license online access to these teardown analyses and also use related services, such as Key Metrics Reports, database access tool and extracts from the Portelligent Product Profile Database. These products help customers with their decision-making processes in a variety of business areas, including product development, technical marketing and competitive benchmarking. Portelligent boasts an equally diverse customer base that is comprised of semiconductor and electronic component manufacturers, fabless integrated circuit design houses, cellular handset makers, consumer electronics manufacturers, wireless carriers, financial analysts and intellectual property licensing firms.
This acquisition is certainly a boost to CMP's Electronics Group. In a press release announcing the deal, Paul Miller, president of the Electronic Group, noted how Portelligent would meld with Semiconductor Insights (which was acquired by CMP in July) and a recently-announced Intellectual Property Symposium. He also noted how the group has invested about $40 million in the group over the last two years to further develop this part of the business. This includes the acquisitions of TechOnLine and Ho Machines Work.
All of these deals are positioned to help CMP provide the broadest array of offerings for its customers. In the process, the company has effectively made the transition from print to alternative offerings as well. Miller notes that print products will generate only 20 percent of the group's revenues in 2008. The rest will be generated by data-based products, including those produced by Portelligent, and online and event products. CMP has really made a strong commitment to move beyond print, and this acquisition just helps illustrate that dedication to providing customers with the content and delivery methods they demand these days.