Ipercast, which specializes in multimedia content management and delivery for the web and mobile devices, has acquired the technology and production assets of 3G Factory, which deploys and operates 3G mobile multimedia services. 3G Factory is a leading provider of video calling services in France, and has an extensive catalogue of applications.

Ipercast says the acquisition will strengthen its capability in the mobile content delivery market. The whole 3G Factory team, including the companys two founders, Dante Tota and Thierry Barnier, will work under the Ipercast umbrella. In the short-term, their main task will be to integrate Ipercasts mobile streaming offer and 3G Factorys 3G video telephony offer into a single multimedia platform that will cater for the full mobile multimedia spectrum: 3G mobile streaming, 3G video telephony and Web 2.0 services.

With this new platform, Ipercast says it aims to carve out a strong strategic position in the mobile video market, positioning itself as the best facilitating agent to accompany media operations, publishers, mobile marketing agencies and mobile Internet/messaging companies as they deploy their 3G video applications in Europe.

In a separate move, Ipercast has opened a UK office, headed up by Marina Sirotkin in the role of UK Country Manager. The move follows the installation of a network Point of Presence (PoP) in England during 2007, which has been connected to Ipercasts global fibre optic network to provide its customers with a more efficient delivery service for the past two years.

Ipercast delivers its services through its own CDN (Content Delivery Network), with a 6,000-mile fibre optic core backbone and several thousand servers located across Europe, the US, Canada and Asia.