Broadcom buys home multimedia firm for $30 million

SOURCE: Morning Eye
http://blogs.ocregister.com/morningeye/archives/2007/05/broadcom_buys_h.html
5/03/2007

Irvine chip maker Broadcom is dipping into its $2 billion hoard of cash to buy a small Massachusetts company that specializes in multimedia home networking through existing coaxial cable.

The price for privately held Octalica Inc. is $31 million in cash, said Broadcom, which reported holdings of $2.028 billion in cash as of March 31.

In its announcement today, Broadcom said the Octalica's specialty, the Multimedia over Coax Alliance, or MoCA, standard, "has emerged as a popular method for in-home multimedia distribution among cable, satellite and telecommunications service providers in the U.S., making Octalica's product portfolio a strong complement to Broadcom's industry leading set-top box and broadband access technologies."

Broadcom has 5,200 employees. Octalica, based in Newton Centre, Mass., has 27, which includes a design team in Tel Aviv, Israel.