Harris splits into Imagine Communications and GatesAir

Speaking at the Harris Broadcast Media Day at Madison Square Garden today, chief executive Charlie Vogt said the two companies “share common customers but innovate on different ends of the technology spectrum”.

Imagine Comunications, which will be headquartered in Dallas, will provide media software and IP networks.

Harris Broadcast completed the acquisition of Imagine Communications earlier this year.

GatesAir will be based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It will focus on “high efficient, TV and radio over-the-air solutions”.

Gates Radio, which was established in 1922, was acquired by Harris Corporation in 1957 when it became Harris’ transmission division.

Vogt will be president and chief executive of both organisations.

“Imagine Communications will lead the media and entertainment markets to a future defined by IP, software, the cloud, and TV everywhere, with an architecture vision for delivering and monetising multiscreen content,” Vogt said.

“Likewise, GatesAir will continue to lead the next-generation TV and radio over-the-air market, with a focus on providing wireless innovations that reduce power consumption and carbon footprint, while leveraging the growth in digital radio and TV transmission across the globe.”

Vogt also announced Imagine Communications’ new Media Central platform, which he described as “the industry’s first end-to-end, traffic, sales, automation program that will be open, modular and portable. It will leverage off-the-shelf computing, and be accessible and managed via the cloud.”

Imagine Communications also introduced Software Defined Workflows, which it described as “a capability enabled by the company’s MultiService SDN architecture”.

“The central theme behind our technology vision unveiled today is to enable our customers to begin migrating towards software defined, IP-based, virtualised networks for both intraplant and interplant, without having to forklift their current networks and make significant new investments,” said Imagine Communications chief technology officer Steve Reynolds.  

GatesAir chief product officer Rich Redmond said the company would build “best-of-breed, over-the-air solutions that take advantage of the latest breakthroughs and changes that will occur over the next decade in content delivery and distribution across the globe”.

Harris Broadcast was sold by Harris Corp in early 2013.