Only one week after winning a $14m investment from Intel Corp (CI No 3,362), Discreet Logic Inc has announced an agreement to acquire MGI Software Inc, a Toronto, Canada-based video software house, in a deal worth approximately $108m. MGI, with 125 employees and a turnover of $10m, develops and distributes the PhotoSuite and VideoWave applications for Windows 95 and NT, aimed at the consumer market rather than the professional industry Discreet Logic has concentrated on to date. PhotoSuite is for editing, organizing and distbuting digital photographs on a PC, while VideoWave is for capturing, editing and producing videos. Under the agreement, each share of MGI common stock will be exchanged for 0.162 shares of Discreet Logic stock. Discreet will see a one-time charge in either its fourth quarter 1998 or first fiscal quarter 1999, when the deal is expected to close. Intel already ships the VideoWave product on its motherboards under a multi-year worldwide agreement, and took a $2.8m stake in MGI last October (CI No 3,258). IBM Corp also bundles VideoWave, which is supposed to make it as easy to produce a video on a computer as it is to create any other document. with OS/2 Warp Release 4.0. Mitsui & Co of Japan and other digital camera, computer and peripheral makers have also partnered with MGI. A new, Internet-enabled version of PhotoSuite is due out later this year.
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