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This is Colin Dixon with NScreen Media and I'm here with Simon Frost from
Ericsson, Head of TV Marketing
and of course,
the big news this week, yesterday in fact, was that Ericsson will be
purchasing Mediaroom from Microsoft
so before we actually jump into that,
why don't we talk about what Ericsson is currently doing in the TV space -
you're obviously doing an awful lot. One big focus for you is multi-screen TV
so talk a little bit about what you're doing with multi-screen.
So multi-screen, or TV Anywhere is a big strategy for most
operators.
Ericsson also has this thing called ConsumerLabs and so we really look into
our consumer studies.
And clearly we use that to see what do the consumers want, where are we going
and we use that to advise
our customers
and service providers particularly,
I mean look at the road map for the plans that we need to the product as well, so
We see clearly that the operators want to be able to leverage and embrace all the
screens that the consumers own in the home.
It's a big challenge to unify those in a very seamless, logical way,
and that service is getting increasingly more complex as well.
Just last year,
the ConsumerLab study showed just how quickly the rise of social was coming along and
how really we have to then build in the social cues into the fabric of
actually the experience itself, so that platform is actually
all about integration, all about unification of screens, unification of that experience and we
driving that with the multi-screen TV solution that we have
deployed with
people like Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan.
I would say it's been a strong thing so far this show, multi-screen is
absolutely key - I mean you can tell from the name of my company,
I'm absolutely there with multi-screen and I completely believe that's the way
all operators certainly need to go in the near future: actually, anybody
delivering content. But you haven't just stopped at multi-screen delivery,
you also have Media Delivery Network? Tell us a little bit about that.
Okay, the multi-screen TV solution, if you like, is about the
service layer really, I like to
think of it more as the,
as I said unifying the client devices, unifying the consumer experience,
the branded consumer experience for the operators,
it's about what is it like to consume the media and interact with it.
But of course, the big challenge then is delivery. So how to you really efficiently deliver
that video, and we've got a big couple of threads within that so of course
we've been within this business for twenty years on the compression side
so high-efficiency video coding: we announced the world's first mobile encoder
platform for that at IBC last year,
and of course one of the latest ones is our brand-new operator CDN solution which is
the Media Delivery Network, so that is about enabling the operator,
the ISP, whoever that is that's providing data services
to the consumer, to the home,
to accelerate a lot of the over-the-top content that's coming for efficiencies
so cash that content, move that closer to the consumer,
actually enhance their experience,
but maybe also I label them
with some opportunities for bi-directional business models to,
to get closer to the content industry, to get closer to some of this
premium content
and accelerate that in a paid way, in a monetized way, because
ultimately consumers want a high-quality video experience wherever they are,
and they look to their local ISP, their local bandwidth provider to give them that.
But it's not just on broadband right, we're talking LTE,
LTE as well?
Yes, so this would be basically any IP network,
any unmanaged IP network,
so another
technology, another addition to that, of course LTE is rising incredibly quickly in
terms of roll-outs and deployments.
At Mobile World Congress
we announced the big solution for something called LTE Broadcast
so that's finally bringing multicast to the mix in a cellular network so
they are another tool in the toolbox for
the wireless operator in this instance
to not just be able to deliver unicast services so
on-demand types of content,
but you know
the analogy was, a good example was at CES
was an announcement by Verizon that they were leveraging this technology through
Ericsson, partnering with the NFL
to offer in-stadium experiences where
you may develop a very rich app with multi camera angles
and you can guarantee, so Verizon can now guarantee to the NFL to deliver
high-quality video to
tens or hundreds of thousands of people - take NASCAR, like a hundred and fifty
thousand people around the NASCAR event.
If you can guarantee that that's you know that symbiotic relationship with the content owner means,
the content owner can build a better relationship
for the consumer, a better experience,
and the seller or provider can use that technology to guarantee that quality
of experience.
So, it's another one of our additions in making networks video-efficient and
video-centric.
Experience and enhancing experience seems to be a definite theme
that I've noticed, certainly
around the industry just recently, but in particular at this show.
So it's great to hear that your involved front and center, there, lots of
activity.
Now, we should move on to the meat.
We've seen how your current portfolio pans out.
How does Mediaroom fit into that portfolio? How do you see it slotting
in there and helping out with the overall drive that you're focused on?
Okay. Well Mediaroom fits very much into that service creation
if you like of the
TV service itself.
Mediaroom predominately has been focused in the home, really,
you know it is the global number one IP video delivery
platform there is
and if you look at any network type any
any delivery network of the future or any service in the future is going to have
to embrace IP video delivery somewhere in that, so
if you're a satellite provider or terrestrial provider,
you're using an RF network perhaps like cable guys do as well,
but you're going to have to meld that with IP for a hybrid network,
or there are some pure IP networks, like the telco ones,
like the wireless ones,
So, what this brings to Ericsson is
the number one platform with the greatest experiences with some of the
most challenging operators in scale
we're talking well over eleven million subscribers, twenty-two million set-top boxes,
over forty-four customers,
that's a lot of skills and experience with well over 400
employees that will come to Ericsson bring that skill, and really add that to our
multi-screen TV solution which
has been very much focused on
the mobility aspects of TV Anywhere, all those other types of screens so
it's really such a complimentary it's uh...
the worldwide number one IPV
video platform for the home
really meets the
you know all of the investment and technology in uh...
a new development we've been doing particurarly for those other screens
and particularly away from the home
very complimentary mix for adding those two together.
And it really does seem though that there's a lot of complimentary there
Mediaroom 2.0 was released I think about a year-and-a-half
almost two years ago now um... it was really targeted at multi-screen
but it's really not found a home in any of the major operators that are still on the
previous release,
so it seems like this is an area that
this solution is really struggled with
so it does seem like it's a great pairing with you're multi-screen
solution.
I believe so yes I think they are very complimentary, and that's a
portfolio capability level I think.
The other aspect I think is incredibly strong is
of course we now have that much stronger portfolio but we're adding it to
well over a hundred thousand-plus people size company in 180
countries.
We are a massive services organization that can provide the
consulting, the integration and even the managed services so we even -
if you look at Telefonica we're managing
their platform for them that's based actually on Mediaroom, so
there's a lot of other options we can bring
to the mix that Microsoft
Mediaroom alone didn't have, so
it's adding that services capability as well which is a key part.
So that was one thing I did want to ask you've already confirmed it,
are you already in many of the customers for Mediaroom?
Are they also your customers as well?
The short answer I guess is yes, but not necessarily in the TV portfolio area of course,
Ericsson's number one committed customer base is the telcos so
that's an area where we will always protect, always defend, and
always look to provide the greatest level of solutioning capability to,
and clearly that big focus is mainly around cellular networks and wireless networks so
of course we have a incredibly strong relationship with
you could say all of the customers of Mediaroom and perhaps already in that way.
Now of course,
before closing which is three to six months there's very strict
rules about engagement and how that will work and of course there's other partners
in there as well in terms of having not necessarily direct relationships with
Mediaroom but some third parties relationship that are managed by others,
other integrators as well so
that process we'll all be very respectful of
those touch-points and those interface point.
I would imagine though that the that amongst the customer base their probably
a little cautious but cautiously positive about this because
it has to be said that Microsoft
for for whatever reason - well, it clearly Mediaroom is not core to Microsoft's
direct thrust, certainly in the video area they're putting a lot of focus on Xbox,
which is I guess kinda competitive with some of the things that
Mediaroom customers are doing, they're bringing a lot of video in through
Xbox right now,
and it seemed like Mediaroom wasn't getting at the love that it once
was getting so I expect that -
well, are you hearing some positive noises from from potential new customers
to existing customers who have this platform?
I think it's very early days, I mean clearly we are getting a lot of,
we've had an awful lot of I would say analyst and media positive reaction
to the news, I think we are getting positive customer news
as of breaking yesterday.
Obviously we are
we have limited discussions with some of those very very key customers so yeah I
think they see it
and a very incredibly positive step
as I said we're incredibly committed to that particular customer base,
and providing them with
the solutions and the
features and functions they need to really accelerate and
drive their business, so we are very much committed to the service
provider, as well as the content owners, of
providing that experience, perhaps more so than
as you say the Microsoft perhaps focus is shifting more towards
enabling the consumer directly
with client devices.
We're in the business of providing the the tools, the technologies
and the services that enable the operators and the content owners to win in
the new era of TV.
Well I suspect that their customer base is probably is probably very happy to hear
it, not least of which because
they really do need these multi-screen solutions and
one of the biggest problems I think with any operator today that's trying to roll out
multi-screen is
they have silos which means
they have one
one solution for their mobile, they have one solution for their broadband and another
solution for their TV.
And these things don't share.
And hopefully that's one of the things that you can help
bring together and make a unified network.
Definitely. I mean it was a big focus for the multi-screen TV solution, it was a
next-gen platform,
we came to the market a little later than some of the others and
that's
Mediaroom is the global number-one for good reason.
I think we see,
the Chunghwa case
telecom case was a good example of
an operator really looking at
the components, the technologies, the investments they have.
If we really firmly believe the consumers are going to continue to evolve so quickly
and expect so much from their devices, their screens,
you really do need one unified platform that's going to
allow that to evolve ever so quickly all these different types of service
features:
pause on one device, play on another device.
Buy a VoD catalog library when I'm on the bus and know I can come home and play it.
The awareness of connection in the back end is going to have to be so
tight and get so much more integrated in the future.
The silo technologies is just continued investments to keep glueing that together
and we've been having a lot of operators with that glue and
we see that tide changing of
a realization that
it's platform 2.0 time, pretty much.
This is a great announcement and I'm really looking forward to hearing
much more about it as you can speak it so I hope you come back and speak with us again.
Simon, I want to thank you for stopping by.
Thank you Colin.
And this has been Colin Dixon.