Facebook buys QuickFire Networks for video infrastructure gear, expertise
Facebook said Thursday that it has acquired QuickFire Networks, which makes gear for delivering video content and transcoding and processing software.
The deal, which follows the purchase of natural language software player Wit.ai this week, illustrates how Facebook is filling in technical gaps so it can add features and improve service. Facebook has been trying to build out its video platform since it boosts engagement as well as potential ad revenue. In the meantime, Facebook has also been courting video content producers.
QuickFire Networks' technology includes T-Video, an appliance that is designed to sit in a 1U rack and do nothing but process and transcode video. The system includes 11 Intel Core i7 processors and GPUs. With a full rack of T-Video you'd get 1,760 cores for video deployments.
Presumably, this hardware will be included in Facebook's data center and help deliver more than 1 billion video views a day. QuickFire also includes QuickFire.tv, which launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in September. Basically, QuickFire.tv is aimed at eliminating bottlenecks and delivers its compute power as a service.
There's also a talent angle. QuickFire CEO Craig Lee held a bevy of executive positions at networking companies, CTO Mike Coward founded Continuous Computing, which was acquired by Radisys in 2011 and Amit Puntambekar, vice president of software engineering, was a media architect at Intel.
QuickFire, based in San Diego, said it will wind down its business and "some key members" of its team will join Facebook.