Extra Magazine
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — July 24, 2001 — A different kind of digital divide is springing up across the cable industry, as the ability to stay on top of emerging technologies is defining success for cable systems and their marketers. Witness how tech-savvy operators like Comcast and Charter are being rewarded on Wall Street for their earnings from new technologies, while AT&T is circled by sharks.
CTAM’s second annual New Product Road Show addresses this need by assembling a dozen cutting-edge vendors to present marketers an insider’s view of new products and services that may help define cable in the coming years.
“Though it may seem a bit outside of the box for CTAM’s noncommercial atmosphere, we tried to choose 12 companies in an objective fashion to give members a real flavor of what’s coming down the pike directly from the horse’s mouth,” said New Product Road Show subcommittee chair Christopher Lammers, executive vp and COO of CableLabs.
This year the committee was more aggressive, casting a wider net to attract a more comprehensive group of prospective presenters. The effort paid off, with 102 proposals to choose from, nearly twice as many as last year.
Vendors were told to address six criteria. The selections were made based on educational value to attendees, the consumer value proposition, how deployable the product is, how sound the provider’s business model is, how unique the offering is compared to the competition and what market research has been assembled to support the need for such a product.
Although there wasn’t a conscious effort to group presenters into technological categories, the 12 that remained were sprinkled fairly evenly among the realms of video-on-demand, broadband, set-top box technologies, IP developments and interactive television, according to Lammers. But the players selected all offer a new take on technologies already available.
For instance, Jay Schiller, nCube’s vp of product management and broadband strategy, will discuss the ins and outs of his company’s server-based personal video recorder service, which takes VOD to a new level. Ncube is building its N4 line of video servers with enough capacity and processing ability to record more than 100,000 hours of live video streams from up to 100 different digital channels. So with sufficient capacity at the headend, MSOs could offer their whole channel lineup on demand with pause-and-play PVR capability, and without having to put another box in the home.
“It will take time for the market to develop and mature, but the technology, the revenue opportunities and the ability to reduce churn is there,” Schiller said. “Not only is a network-based PVR system more economical than putting hard drives in set-tops, but the ability to insert targeted advertising into the video stream will be a significant opportunity for operators.”
Interactive advertising is just one component of MetaTV’s comprehensive ITV software platform poised to speed the development of content by advertisers and programmers. Mill Valley, Calif.-based MetaTV will try to convince marketers that its universal portal platform is as easy to use as Adobe Illustrator and, more importantly, just as universal.
“History has shown that whereever there’s a progressive technology, even though there are standards, there will always be a need to support multiple versions and environments” said Ramon Chen, MetaTV’s vp of worldwide marketing.
The platform has two functions. First, it provides simple tools that enable designers to create images and functional programs for an application. Then it automatically adapts that content to run on whichever language and middleware system the network operator has chosen. So far MetaTV has been integrated with Microsoft TV, OpenTV, PowerTV, WorldGate, Big Band Networks, Scientific-Atlanta and Sony.
“We’re going to give an overview at the roadshow of the whole platform, what you’re able to create in the way of new services and how we fit into the interactive television ecosystem,” said Ramon Chen, MetaTV’s vp of worldwide marketing. “Out technology combines the functionality of high processing transactions with the gloss of custom design tools so essential for the content creators.”
Another software company presenting at the road show is Emperative, which offers provisioning software for high-speed Internet service. While not as sexy as interactive television, provisioning software can greatly speed up and reduce the cost of the new subscriber installation and implementation process, while also opening previously untapped markets.
“With cable modems you need a truck roll, wiring, PC tweaking, broadband infrastructure configurations and billing system additions,” said Randy Fuller, Emperative’s vp of marketing. “We make software that automates that whole process so that customers can buy a modem and install it themselves.”
What marketers will be interested in is what the software enables in the way of multi-tiered offerings. Taking a page from DSL, Cox Cable’s Mid-America division headquartered in Tyler, TX, is using Emperative’s software to offer three tiers of broadband service allowing three different connections speeds – 64K, 256K or 1MB per second – at three different prices. This enables the MSO to market cable modem service to anyone from an occasional surfer to a hardcore online gamer.
“You can start playing with price performance rations and matching up your offerings with what people are willing to pay for,” Fuller said. “For instance, marketers decided they wanted to give low-end users a taste of what it’s like to get high-speed service for a week, so they sent a free trial promo through the pipeline and our system automatically upgraded their service but [bypass] the billing system.”