Analyst Show Flashes from TelcoTV 2007
Current Analysis analysts wrote eight intelligence reports on announcements made at the show, providing their perspective on the overall merit of the announcement as well as its importance to the vendor and the market as a whole. Highlights for those reports from those reports appear below. Client with subscriptions to the Digital Media Infrastructure module can read the full reports by clicking the Client Access links. |
Contents
NDS Teams with Amino for Prime-time Debut of H.264 HD DVR
| Analyst: Erik Keith | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 24, 2007 -- NDS introduced its high-definition digital video recorder, an Amino AmiNET530 set-top box (STB) powered by NDS Metro, which is an integrated IPTV middleware and conditional access (CA) solution that provides a complete end-to-end turnkey offering for telecommunications companies and broadband operators. SES AMERICOM, the only company delivering MPEG4 IPTV service to telcos in the U.S., is the first customer and it will integrate the HD DVR solution into its IP-PRIME IPTV solution for service providers.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Moderate to high to both NDS and Amino, as the debut of the AmiNET530 at the TelcoTV show, with the SES AMERICOM selection an integral part of the announcement, provides NDS and Amino with solid exposure and a sizeable potential sales channel for their joint solution, especially as both vendors look to establish greater traction in their target markets (i.e., NDS in the IPTV middleware space and Amino in the IPTV STB sector).
• Vendor Importance: Moderate to Axiom, since international expansion is a key component of its growth strategy. With the growth in advanced services expected to increase in all emerging markets, the partnership with BI Telecom represents a logical next step forward for the two companies. Since the agreement does not specify any exclusivity, both companies are free to pursue other partnership agreements, making the deal somewhat opportunistic in nature.
• Market Impact: Low to moderate on the IPTV middleware and STB sectors within the digital media infrastructure market, because despite the claims and hyperbole (“first to market”), NDS and Amino are well behind the established market leaders in these target segments, and even with the key IPTV/digital video service-enabling capabilities and integrated functionality of the AmiNET530. In addition, while the SES AMERICOM customer relationship is certainly a solid endorsement of the joint NDS/Amino solution, SES AMERICOM has established relatively limited traction in the nascent IPTV market.
Orca’s New COMPASS Will Help IPTV Subscribers Exit the EPG Grid
| Analyst: Yoav Schreiber | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 24, 2007 – Orca Interactive launched its new COMPASS content discovery solution at TelcoTV. COMPASS, which runs on Orca’s RiGHTv IPTV middleware platform, provides intuitive and personalized content navigation capabilities. It enables subscribers to identify and select relevant content more quickly from the ever-increasing pool of available content, allowing operators to promote premium and niche content while ensuring customer satisfaction. Expected availability is in H1 2008.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on Orca’s TelcoTV launch and demonstration of its new COMPASS content discovery solution, because the technology highlights Orca’s innovative strengths with a product to deliver interactive middleware-based capabilities that improves subscriber quality of experience (QoE). Orca is leading the IPTV middleware pack in providing advanced content navigation and discovery solutions to address the looming concern of subscriber dissatisfaction and potential churn when confronted with selecting content from the ever-increasing pool of content, such as live, on-demand, pre-recorded and user-generated.
• Vendor Importance: High to Orca, which must remain positioned on the feature/functionality frontier to expand its presence in the IPTV middleware market segment, especially as it confronts giants such as Microsoft TV and Nokia Siemens Networks/Myrio more directly, as well as more nimble rivals such as Minerva (who has established a solid foothold in North America), NDS, Espial and others. For Orca, which can boast over 14 global IPTV deployments and tight partnerships with VoD vendor BitBand and integrator Comverse, the COMPASS functionality will add to Orca’s competitive value proposition of successful IPTV deployments in less than four months.
• Market Impact: Moderate to high on the IPTV middleware market segment, which is currently undergoing a transitional period as initial deployments are challenged to scale and flexibly introduce new services, while the “wait-and-see” approach for Microsoft TV is reaching a turning-point, with eyes primarily fixed upon progress in the AT&T and Deutsche Telekom rollouts. If Orca’s COMPASS product can gain traction with operator customers (after its likely Q2 2008 availability), and demonstrate ease of introduction and integration into existing ecosystems that include set-top boxes (STB), IPTV middleware rivals will be forced to pony up their own new capabilities for introducing new services that enhance subscriber viewing experiences.
Thomson Ready to Put IMS into IPTV
| Analyst: Ron Westfall | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 24, 2007 – Thomson announced its strategy for the delivery of interactive voice and video services over any fixed or mobile network using IMS (“IP Multimedia Subsystem”) architecture. This announcement follows Thomson’s ongoing action to ease the deployment of new IPTV and interactive TV services and lower network costs. Leveraging standard interfaces and mechanisms, IMS is a network architecture developed together by equipment vendors and telecom operators to deliver any type of service over any local loop and any device using a single infrastructure.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Neutral on Thomson’s revealing its intentions to incorporate IMS capabilities into the IPTV dimension of consumer multi-play services at the Telco TV trade show event. This gives Thomson some early to market sales and marketing momentum in promoting its efforts to tie IMS more directly with IPTV, but the earliest tangible yields from such efforts will not be realized until around mid-2008 and IMS technology and expectations have experienced some marketing fallout from earlier over-hyped deployment efforts.
• Vendor Importance: Moderate to Thomson, because the company needed to unveil its plans to interweave IMS and IPTV capabilities together as it strives to position itself as an early market leader within the nascent IPTV market area. Plus, Thomson needed to counter the revealed IMS/IPTV migration efforts of key IPTV solution rivals.
• Market Impact: Low to moderate on the overall IPTV market area, as the evolution of a tighter coupling between IPTV and IMS has been anticipated for at least a year and Thomson’s major IPTV solution rivals are already engaged in product development and test bed efforts to synthesize IMS with IPTV more effectively, and thus will not be compelled to react to Thomson’s TelcoTV-based announced intentions in the area.
Harmonic Primes its On-Demand Solutions for SES AMERICOM’s IP-PRIME
| Analyst: Yoav Schreiber | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 25, 2007 – Harmonic announced at TelcoTV 2007 that its on-demand video serving solutions will be incorporated into SES AMERICOM’s end-to-end IPTV delivery service, IP-PRIME. The IP-PRIME platform’s expansion to include on-demand solutions for the delivery of services such as video on demand (VoD) and network personal video recording (nPVR), will be enabled by Harmonic’s StreamLiner 2000 video servers, CLEARcut storage solution and Ingest Gateway workflow software.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on Harmonic’s announcement that its on-demand solutions will be incorporated into SES AMERICOM’s IP-PRIME IPTV service. The expansion of SES AMERICOM’s IP-PRIME offering to include on-demand solutions will certainly enhance its attraction for telco operators who are seeking to deliver revenue enhancing services such as VoD. However, the expansion remains planned, with no target availability date, limiting the near-term benefit of the announcement to Harmonic, SES AMERICOM and potential telco operator customers. The announcement is well timed with the TelcoTV 2007 show, broadening the potential audience for the IP-PRIME service, especially given SES AMERICOM’s increased presence and live demonstrations at multiple vendor booths.
• Vendor Importance: Low to moderate to Harmonic as IP-PRIME offers a channel to expand its on-demand solutions, especially among lower tier telco operators looking for an end-to-end, managed IPTV service. However, there has been limited uptake of IP-PRIME since its June 2007 availability. Despite the increasing buzz and demonstrations of IP-PRIME at multiple vendor booths at TelcoTV, SES AMERICOM’s publicly announced telco IPTV customers remain limited, primarily to National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) members.
• Market Impact: Low to moderate on the overall digital media infrastructure (DMI) market and the content delivery and video headend segments, because while the inclusion of Harmonic’s on-demand solutions certainly enhances the IP-PRIME offering, the target market is primarily limited to lower tier telco operators looking to avoid the complexity of managing their own DMI and delivery solutions (i.e., headends, content acquisition, etc.). Thus, Harmonic’s video processing and serving competitors, such as BitBand, Cisco, Ericsson, Kasenna and SeaChange International will be less compelled to respond. In addition, SES AMERICOM’s managed IPTV service will face competition from pre-integrated IPTV solutions that include video serving solutions, such as BitBand, Optibase and Orca who have already secured a win with W.T. Services in Texas.
ICTV Socializes Its ActiveVideo Network Distribution Platform
| Analyst: Ron Westfall | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 23, 2007 – ICTV, which delivers high-quality video with broadband choice and control to the television via cable and IPTV networks, announced that it will demonstrate how its ActiveVideo Distribution Network is enabling a universally deployable cross-platform social networking capability at the Telco TV Conference and Expo. ICTV will show how ActiveVideo can bring the fast innovation and personal social networking functionality of Web 2.0 together with broadcast television on any digital set-top box, giving individuals the opportunity to initiate text-based interaction in real time on the TV from mobile phones and PCs.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on ICTV’s revealing new social networking capabilities on its ActiveVideo Distribution Network (AVDN) platform at the Telco TV event, as it helps position ICTV as being at the forefront of supporting such new features, although challenges remain in proving how effectively and rapidly social networking capabilities can be integrated within the framework of existing multi-play consumer service offerings.
• Vendor Importance: Moderate to ICTV as the demonstration of the addition of social networking capabilities, such as using existing mobile devices to include text within existing Web/IPTV service offerings, enhances the overall attractiveness of the AVDN platform and counters the ongoing efforts of content delivery system rivals to commercialize such features as well.
• Market Impact: Low to moderate on the overall content delivery system segment, as ICTV currently lacks the market presence, despite its presence within carrier networks such as PCCW and Grande Communications, to engender specific rival reactions to demonstrations such as new social networking features.
Packet Vision Shows Its IPTV Ad Vision is 20/20 with SES Americom Win
| Analyst: Ron Westfall | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 23, 2007 – SES AMERICOM, an SES company, announced that it has teamed with advertising technology specialist Packet Vision, to enable telecommunications carriers using SES AMERICOM's IP-PRIME Internet protocol television (IPTV) service to generate advertising revenue through the insertion of targeted local ads. In conjunction, Packet Vision announced that it will showcase its addressable advertising technology and demonstrate how operators can generate new revenue streams through targeted advertising at TelcoTV.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on Packet Vision’s landing SES Americom as a customer and showcasing its network-based advertising technology aimed primarily at IP-based advertising models including IPTV services. Packet Vision touts its technology as targeted, addressable advertising, which will likely prove essential in generating revenues and margins within the context of interactive, on-demand IPTV service models, but Packet Vision faces a variety of savvy IPTV solution rivals in pursuing this distinct and emerging market segment.
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• Vendor Importance: Moderate to high to Packet Vision as the company needed to showcase its network-based addressable advertising technology at a high-profile North American IPTV-related show such as Telco TV, especially since Packet Vision recently opened its North American operations within the last year. The SES Americom endorsement provides a clear sales and marketing springboard for Packet Vision’s ongoing North American market expansion efforts.
• Market Impact: Moderate to high on the content delivery system segment, because SES Americom is the premier IPTV and video wholesaler to a vast array of U.S.-based second-tier and third-tier telcos, which will oblige Packet Vision’s rivals to potentially adjust their pricing models (i.e., no upfront equipment expenditures) to more directly counter Packet Vision’s pricing approach. However, Packet Vision is a start-up with limited market presence thus far, so rivals will not be compelled to make direct counter-moves, but will take note of Packet Vision’s newly minted North American market expansion efforts.
TANDBERG TV Unveils Its iPlex UltraCompression IPTV Platform for North America
| Analyst: Ron Westfall | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 19, 2007 - TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group, shows its iPlexT UltraCompression IPTV video processing platform and debut its high performance integrated transcoding capabilities for the first time in North America. The new iPlex UltraCompression transcoder furthers TANDBERG Television's market leadership in the IPTV space. It supports multi-format MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC SD and HD input streams and uses TANDBERG Television's best-in-class next generation AVC platform to transcode them to either MPEG-4 AVC SD or HD output.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on TANDBERG Television’s debut of the iPlex UltraCompression IPTV video processing platform at the Telco TV event as the platform’s release takes advantage of the operator and content provider trend toward producing more HD content for audiences, especially within North America, while also making a compelling case for improving the economics of operator head-end costs and operations.
• Vendor Importance: High to TANDBERG TV who needed to unveil the iPlex UltraCompresson IPTV platform in North America to further capitalize on the platform’s earlier success within the EMEA region as well as further buttress Ericsson/TANDBERG TV’s ongoing market leadership within the nascent IPTV head-end (HE) market segment.
• Market Impact: Moderate to high within the video HE market segment overall as Ericsson/TANDBERG TV already possesses market share leadership within the burgeoning IPTV HE market segment, thereby compelling rivals to adopt specific product positioning and marketing responses to TANDBERG TV’s debut of the iPlex UltraCompression platform within North America.
RGB Targets Telco IPTV with an Integrated Video Processing Platform
| Analyst: Yoav Schreiber | Digital Media Infrastructure | Client Access |
Announcement Summary
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October 1, 2007 – RGB Networks introduced its Modular Video Processor (MVP) for the telco IPTV market with its TelcoTV 2007 announcement. The MVP is a modular and integrated solution enabling Telco’s to deliver high quality, IP-based video services to their subscribers. It provides concurrent support for MPEG-2/4 processing, targeted advertising insertion, high-density aggregation and high reliability. RGB will demonstrate the new MVP at TelcoTV.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on RGB’s announcement introducing its new Modular Video Processor (MVP) at TelcoTV, because RGB is timing its expansion into the telco IPTV market as operators increasingly adopt the transition to delivering high definition (HD) content and MPEG-4 video compression. RGB is leveraging its proven video processing credentials gained in the cable market to deliver a modular and integrated IPTV solution.
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• Vendor Importance: Moderate to high to RGB, which needs to diversify its revenue stream and expand the reach of its video processing solutions beyond its cable operator core, especially as telco investment in advanced video processing solutions for IPTV services is growing.
• Market Impact: Low to moderate on the video headend market, because despite having consulted closely with telecom carriers in designing the MVP to meet their specific needs, the announcement lacked a telecom operator endorsement. Furthermore, product details are absent from both the press release and the company’s website, leading to the conclusion that the product announcement and TelcoTV demonstration are no more than an introduction. Given the competitive stakes involved as RGB faces more established rivals, it remains to be seen whether the MVP introduction will be a ripple, rather than a splash.
