Well it was a long time coming if it is true. Entriq, as a subsidiary of the public South African company Naspers blew through a rumored $140M in just 9 years of operation and had a massive turnover problem in their sales/bizdev group year after year. Every show I went to in 2007/2008 I met a new head of BizDev or a new “West Coast Sales Director.”

The company had a strong platform in MediaSphere but suffered from a lack of identity and the need to do it all to book the revenue they needed to justify their cash run. With big customers like NBA, the UFC, Oprah’s Harpo Productions, CBS, BSkyB and many other monolithic media brands, you would have thought they would be rolling in greenbacks.

At some point early last year the company made a decision to get into the content delivery space which, IMHO, was the beginning of the end for them. I just placed a call into their former offices where the phones are now being answered by Irdeto staff with an Irdeto greeting. Doing a search at www.irdeto.com for the term “MediaSphere” pulls up a blank page and a search for the term “Entriq” pulls up exec bios and a Irdeto Support Portal link but nothing about the former company or it’s flagship product.

Paul Raglund is apparently the sole guy left in charge so we will have to see what he says if he returns our emails.