NDS Group Ltd. (Formerly traded as NASDAQ: NNDS) develops software solutions for the pay TV industry. NDS was established in 1988 as an Israeli start up company.^[1] It was acquired by News Corporation in 1992. The company is currently headquartered in Staines, United Kingdom. Its major shareholders are Permira, which holds 51%, and News Corporation, which holds approximately 49%.

The Executive Chairman of NDS is Abe Peled and the CEO is Dave Habiger. The company's major product is the VideoGuard conditional access system, which is used by more than 85 leading pay TV operators around the world. NDS technology includes end to end solutions for satellite, broadband IPTV, Hybrid,OTT solutions and EPGs. It has just launched VideoGuard Connect, the DRM for Pay-TV, designed to help TV operators to seamlessly extend their pay-TV services to connected media devices, enabling secure ingestion, delivery and consumption of premium content over both managed and OTT networks while maintaining subscription privileges across devices. NDS also provides advanced advertising, professional services and system integration services. New solutions to secure content on PCs, tablets, and other devices are displayed at IBC and CES.

History[link]

NDS Israel headquarters in Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem

The company was established in 1988 by a group of ten scientists of the Weizmann Institute, a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. The company was based on technology developed by the Israeli cryptographer Adi Shamir and his partner Amos Fiat.^[1][2]Shamir and Fiat devised a coding solution for the encryption system used in satellite broadcasts. ^[3]

In 1992, one year after finalizing its product, the company was acquired by its primary customer, News Corp, for $15 million.^[1] In 1999, the company began trading as a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. In 2009, Permira and News Corporation announced a $3.6 billion arrangement for buying the public holding in NDS, turning it into a privately held company.^[4][5]

Acquisitions[link]

• In December 2000 NDS acquired Orbis Technology, a British company which develops software for interactive betting, in order to strengthens its application portfolio for Interactive TV.^[6]
  • In March 2008 Orbis Technology acquired Electracade Ltd, a UK based developer of online interactive games for £2.6M.^[7]
  • In July 2010 Orbis Technology acquired Alphameric Solutions, a provider of technology to the bookmaking marketplace, from Alphameric PLC for £15.5M.
  • In February 2011, Orbis Technology was sold by NDS for £208m, in a management buyout backed by private equity firm Vitruvian Partners.^[8]

• In June 2002 NDS acquired Visionik A/S, a Danish company, which provides digital interactive broadcast technology.
• In August 2003 NDS acquired all the intellectual property assets of a French interactive TV technology company Interactif Delta Production S.A.^[9]
• On 16 December 2003, NDS acquired the MediaHighway middleware business from Canal+ Technologies a subsidiary of Thomson SA and licensed certain related patents from Thomson SA for a total consideration of €60 million.^[10]
• In October 2006 NDS acquired Danish game design company ITE.^[11]

• On December 4, 2006, NDS acquired Jungo, which provides software for residential gateways, for an aggregate consideration of up to $107.5 million in cash.^[12]

• On August 7, 2007 NDS acquired CastUp Inc, which provides an end to end solution for the acquisition, processing, distributing, serving and monetizing of rich media content over IP, particularly video and audio over the internet.^[13]

• On March 15, 2012, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced its intent to acquire NDS Group Ltd.

Legal issues[link]

Israeli tax investigation[link]

In 1996, NDS was investigated by Israeli authorities for allegations of tax irregularities. None was proven but NDS later paid a $3m settlement to close the case.^[14]

Canal Plus Lawsuit[link]

In 2002, Canal Plus accused NDS of extracting the UserROM code from the MediaGuard cards and leaking it onto the internet.^[15] According to The Guardian, the NDS laboratory in Haifa, Israel had been working on breaking the SECA-produced MediaGuard smartcards used by Canal+, ITV Digital and other non-Murdoch-owned TV companies throughout Europe. Canal Plus brought a $3 billion lawsuit against NDS but later dropped the action. News Corporation agreed to buy Canal Plus's struggling Italian operation Telepiu.^[16][17]

Echostar lawsuit[link]

Echostar sued NDS for $1 billion for piracy and copyright infringement of the Echostar viewing card codes and for aiding the distribution and supply of pirate Echostar viewing cards for the Echostar-owned Dish TV. EchoStar alleged that in the 90’s NDS was responsible for the compromise of EchoStar’s satellite television programming platform through the posting of code on the DR7 website. NDS vigorously defended the allegations made against it, establishing that NDS played no part in the compromise of EchoStar’s security system. On 2008-05-15 a jury in California convicted NDS of violating the Federal Communications Act and California Penal Code, cleared NDS of other charges, and awarded $1,500 in damages.^[18]

In August 2010, the Ninth Circuit stated in its decision that “EchoStar did not succeed 'on any significant issue' or 'achieve any of the benefit it sought in bringing suit' under the Communications Act.” The Ninth Circuit awarded NDS US$18 million and concluded that “There is no question that NDS successfully defended against all of EchoStar’s claims based on or related to its theory that NDS was responsible for the compromise of EchoStar’s satellite television programming security system.”

In February 2011, the Ninth Circuit further stated, “NDS was the prevailing party in this litigation and that EchoStar fails to meet the legal definition of a prevailing party on any of its claims.”

In January 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States of America denied a petition to hear a challenge by EchoStar. EchoStar and NDS agreed that the terms for satisfying the judgment should be met by 9 March 2012.

On 9 March 2012, NDS received from EchoStar the remaining balance of US$18,935,399.49, in full satisfaction of the final judgment, including district court fees and costs, appellate court fees and costs and all interest.

BBC Panorama[link]

On 26 March 2012, the BBC programme Panorama broadcast that NDS employed computer hacking to undermine the business of ONDigital.^[19] At the time, ONDigital was the primary TV rival in Britain of BSkyB, a News Corporation company. The accusations arise from emails obtained by the BBC, and an interview with Lee Gibling, the operator of a hacking website, who claims he was paid up to £60,000 per year by Ray Adams, NDS head of security.^[20] UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom is to investigate these claims.^[21] These claims are vigorously denied by NDS and NewsCorp.^[22]

Australia Financial Review Allegations[link]

On 27 March 2012, the Australia Financial Review published further allegations about NDS' involvement in hacking the systems of competitors.^[23] The Australia Financial Review also published online a sample of 14,400 emails allegedly taken from the computer of former NDS head of security Ray Adams.^[24] The investigation by the paper alleges that NDS illegally undermined rivals Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when parent company News Corporation was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry. In response to these allegations, Australia's communication minister Steven Conroy called for a police investigation.^[25] In response to the allegations, News Limited, the Australian arm of News Corporation released the following statement: "The story is full of factual inaccuracies, flawed references, fanciful conclusions and baseless accusations which have been disproved in overseas courts,"^{[citation needed]}

Products and customers[link]

As of December 2011, NDS VideoGuard CA and DRM solutions were deployed in more than 125 million digital pay-TV households. MediaHighway set-top-box software has been deployed in more than 214 million set-top boxes. XTV PVR/DVR technology is used by more than 20 operators in more than 47 million set-top-boxes. It is more commonly identifiable under the names Sky+ (in BSkyB) and DirecTV+ (in DirecTV). NDS also supplies interactive TV applications, platforms, and development tools. NDS has over 5000 employees, with offices in the UK, Israel, India, United States, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Russia, Singapore, France, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Australia.

Leading customers include DirecTV (in the USA), BSkyB, Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland, SKY México, SKY Brasil, SKY Network Television (in New Zealand), Viasat (in Sweden, Norway & Denmark), TotalTV, Foxtel (in Australia), China Central Television (CCTV), Yes and Hot (in Israel), SkyLife, CanalSat (in France), Astro (in Malaysia), Cablevision (in the USA), Indovision (in the Indonesia), Tata Sky, Airtel, Hathway, Telecom Italia and Den (in India).

See also[link]

• Conditional access
• Interactive television
• Economy of Israel
• Science and technology in Israel
• Silicon Wadi

References[link]

NDS is an initialism may stand for:

• Low German (Dutch: Nedersaksisch, German: Niederdeutsche Sprache, ISO 639-2 language code: NDS), a regional language spoken in the north of Germany and the northeast of the Netherlands
• Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen)
• NDS Group, a company specializing in television technology, including digital rights management
  • NDS is also used as shorthand for Videoguard, the encryption system created by NDS Group
• National Directorate of Security (Afghanistan), an Afghan government agency
• Nintendo DS, a portable game system by Nintendo
• Novell eDirectory, formerly Novell Directory Services, directory service software for a network
• Nuclear Detection System, a system to detect the blast of a nuclear device
• New Data Seal, an encryption algorithm
• News Distribution Service, operated by the UK government's Central Office of Information
• NDS, Inc, a producer of plastic drainage products
• Non-drive side, a cycling term for the left side of a bicycle
• Nouvelle Démocratie Sociale
• Navigation Data Standard
• Short for Network Data Systems, an IT professional services firm
• Bosnian: Nova Demokratska Stranka Nova Demokratska Stranka a Bosniak Party in the municipality of Prizren.
• Nickname for Nick Dal Santo, Australian Rules footballer
• NASA Docking System, a spacecraft docking and berthing mechanism being developed by NASA for the next generation of space exploration vehicles.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up group in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A group is a number of things or persons being in some relation to one another.

Mathematics[link]

• Group (mathematics), a set together with a binary operation satisfying certain algebraic conditions
  • Group theory, the study of groups
  • Group action, a way of describing the symmetries of objects using groups
  • Group isomorphism, a one-to-one correspondence (function) between two groups which respects the given group operations
  • Group object, a kind of generalization of a group which is built on more complicated structures than sets

Science[link]

Chemistry

• Functional group, a functional entity consisting of certain atoms whose presence provides a certain property to a molecule
• Group (periodic table), a column in the periodic table of chemical elements

Biology

• Cultivar group, a formal classification category in the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP)
• Group selection, in evolutionary biology, the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow upon groups of organisms

Cosmology

• Galaxy groups and clusters, a small number of galaxies near each other
  • Local Group, the group containing the Milky Way Galaxy

Other

• Group delay and phase delay
• a set of lenses stacked together
• Group (stratigraphy), in geology, a lithostratigraphical unit; a group consists of formations, or rock strata.

Business[link]

• Business group, a legal entity comprising several companies

Sociology[link]

• Social groups, a description of various human groups
  • Peer group
  • Working group
  • Interest group
• Group action (sociology)
• Group affective tone
• Group aggression
• Group attribution error
• Group behaviour
• Group cohesiveness
• Group conflict
• Group development
• Group dynamics
• Group guilt
• Group narcissism
• Group polarization
• Group psychological abuse
• Group scapegoating
• Group-serving bias

Computing and the internet[link]

• Group (computing), a collection of users or other objects
  • Group identifier (Unix)
• Group editor, a program that allows many people to edit a shared document over a computer network
• Usenet newsgroup

Military[link]

• Army group
• Group (air force), an air force formation
• Group Captain

Other uses[link]

• Breed Groups (dog), the group or category to which breeds of dogs are assigned by kennel clubs
• Group (auto racing), a category of car allowed to compete in auto racing.
• Group insurance covering people with common characteristics
• A musical ensemble:
  • Boy band
  • Girl group
  • Groupies

See also[link]

• Grouping (disambiguation)
• The Group (disambiguation)
• Functional group (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

David "Dave" Habiger (born February 19, 1969) is an American digital media executive and entrepreneur. He has been appointed as NDS Group Chief Executive Officer in 2011 ^[1][2]. He was president and chief executive officer of Sonic Solutions. He was the founder of Providence Productions.

Dave Habiger

Early life[link]

Habiger was born in Joliet, Illinois. His father was a mechanical engineer and entrepreneur. In the late 70’s, his mother was engaged in the computer revolution and introduced Dave to technology at an early age.

Habiger received a Bachelors degree from St. Norbert College and began producing documentaries after graduation^[3]. In 1991 he founded Providence Productions, which focused on funding, producing, and distributing documentaries^{[4] [5]}.

In 1997, he received his MBA from the University of Chicago^[6].

Career[link]

Dave Habiger

Dave began working with the founding members of Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC) in 1992 and was instrumental in the company’s 1994 initial public offering ^[7]. Under Habiger's leadership, Sonic focused on software developers and became one of the largest global providers of premium movies and TV shows via the Web and CE devices. Habiger emphasizes engineering excellence and empowering the engineers in an organization^[8]. Since its IPO, the company has generated over $1.5 billion in revenue in the digital media category and has been named one of Forbes, Fortune and Business Week’s Fastest Growing Companies on multiple occasions^[9].^[10]. Sonic opened the NASDAQ market in 2008^[11] and 2010^[12].

Habiger was named 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year for The American Business Defense and Advisory Council. He is the 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year^[13]. In 2008, Dave was chosen as one of Corporate Leader Magazine’s 40 under 40 business leaders^[14] and regularly appears as an industry expert on major media outlets including: CNBC^[15], CNN^[16], Fox^{[17] [18]}, USA Today^[19][20], TheStreet.Com, and Bloomberg TV^[21][22].

Hollywood Reporter chose him as one of 2010’s Digital Power 50^[23]. Between March 2009 and March 2011 he oversaw a 5000% increase in Sonic’s market capitalization as the company reinvented its core business^[24]. He sold Sonic to Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ: ROVI) in early 2011 at a 66% premium - slightly under 1 billion dollars after stock adjustments to the deal^[25][26].

In 2008 Habiger joined the board of Akimbo Systems. Habiger is on the Advisory Board for the University of Chicago Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. He is Chairman of the Chicago EV Commission. He is currently on the advisor board for the Heroic Imagination Project^[27] and is a trustee for the Hinsdale Historic Society. He is a member of the NACD^[28], National Association of Corporate Directors, as well as a member of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group^[29] and for the Center for Corporate Innovation. Habiger is a member of the RealD (NASDAQ: RLD) board. ^[30] He is a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

Dave Habiger holds dual citizenship in both the United States and European Union.

Awards[link]

Dave Habiger received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year© Award in 2011. The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year© award is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs, spanning more than 140 cities and 50 countries worldwide.

References[link]

External links[link]

• SonicPress Youtube Channel. Interviews with Habiger.