Logitech acquires SightSpeed

Logitech announced Tuesday that it has paid about $30 million in cash to acquire SightSpeed, a maker of cross-platform video chat and calling software. It's a logical acquisition for Logitech, which includes video cameras among its large portfolio of peripherals for PCs.

Berkeley, Calif.-based SightSpeed was founded in 2001 and has 25 employees. SightSpeed's video communications solution is based on the session initiation protocol (SIP) and offers 30 frame-per-second video and an integrated instant messaging service. SightSpeed supports 640 x 480 video windows at any speeds above 1.5 Mbps, multiparty conference calls and in-call file sharing. A free version is available and pricing for the SightSpeed Plus for consumers is $9.95 per month or $99.95 per year. Pricing for the more full-featured Business edition starts at $19.95 per user per month or $189.95 per year. The acquisition is expected to close next month.

[xpgeek11]

I sure hope they don't kill off the free version. I love SightSpeed, it is by far the BEST realtime video quality for webcam use.

[paul613]

So SightSpeed supports VGA resolution at rates above 1.5Mbps. In America, only FIOS uses enjoy such a generous upload speed. Cable and DSL ISPs have focused on download speeds, because that's what sells to the unwashed masses.

Still, unless both you and your webcam buddy are using Logitech's cameras that support Skype's dual-processor mode, SightSpeed probably delivers the best picture. But I can't get my far-flung relatives to try it. It was hard enough moving some of them to Skype, and the last thing they want is yet another videochat program.