Convera and NBA Terminate Agreement

Convera (www.convera.com) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced on Thursday that they have terminated their interactive services agreement entered into last September. Financial details of the deal were not released.

Convera was supplying video indexing and services for the NBA's My Highlights service, which let users create their own video highlights. Convera had been providing the service for the NBA, but said it's now focusing on software to enterprise and government agencies, rather than services.

"As we announced last May, in response to weaker than anticipated broadband penetration and consumer demand for interactive services, Convera is no longer focusing on the interactive services business and successfully shifted our emphasis to the development, marketing and sales of software products to access unstructured information for the enterprise and government markets," said Pat Condo, president and CEO, Convera. "As a result of the termination and our shift in business strategy, Convera expects to save in excess of $10 million in costs in the coming year. In addition, we did not expect any material revenues this year from the NBA agreement."

Convera was formed by the combination of Intel Media and Excalibur late last year. In November 2000, Intel signed to do interactive NBA content, which led the NBA to take a 10 percent stake in Convera.

Meanwhile, Convera's main competition, Virage, still has a deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) and the NHL. Virage created MLB's searchable video index earlier this year that lets fans create their own detailed video highlights by searching for specific teams, players, hits, and more.

Convera board director and NBA commissioner David Stern, will not stand for re-election to its board of directors after the next stockholders meeting on October 12, 2001.