SeaChange News:

--Acquires Mobix Interactive
--Partners with Turkey's Argela on Joint IPTV Offering
--Expands Relationships with Suddenlink, Buckeye
--Teams with Virgin Media on VOD Advertising Trial

VOD and IPTV technology provider, SeaChange International, has generated a fair amount of news over the past few weeks:

--The company has acquired Mobix Interactive, a UK-based company that provides software, content-aggregation services and branded content for mobile phone operators. The acquisition is designed to broaden the offering of SeaChange's on-demand content subsidiary, the On Demand Group (ODG). Mobix's current customers include UK network operators, O2 and 3, and South Africa's Vodacom. It also has relationships in place with Warner Music Group, Turner and MGM Universal. Under the terms of the acquisition, SeaChange paid $4.5 million upon the closing of the transaction on November 19th, of which $1.5 million was held in escrow subject to potential post-closing adjustments. In addition to this upfront payment, the purchase price includes contingent consideration of up to $12.5 million, dependent on Mobix achieving certain financial and commercial measures over the next three years. "This acquisition strengthens our Media Services segment by broadening the On Demand Group's video content service offering to include mobile applications," SeaChange president and CEO, Bill Styslinger, said in a prepared statement. "Mobix not only provides proven solutions to a new set of customers for ODG, but also allows ODG to offer one branded service across multiple platforms for many of its existing customers."

--Turkish ISP, TTNET, has tapped the On Demand Group to managed a VOD service that will be part of its new IPTV offering. "We have exciting plans to offer our customers new, value-added services to expand our current offer, and are pleased to be working with ODG, with their unparalleled knowledge of launching and maximizing the impact of IPTV content services," TTNET CEO, Tahsin Yilmaz, said in a prepared statement.
--The company says it is partnering with Turkey-based Argela on a joint IPTV offering, whose first customer is Turk Telekom. According to SeaChange, the joint offering will enable telcos to offer telephony, messaging, Internet access, mobility services, VOD, and PVR services that integrate seamlessly with their service delivery platforms (SDP). SeaChange says it brings to the partnership its experience in software (via its TV Navigator technology), systems integration, and service deployments with such telcos as Verizon, NTT-Communications (OnDemandTV) and Telus, while Argela brings its experience in developing, deploying and maintaining "new generation" telecommunications solutions for telcos, which include the Argela SDP, the main building block of its multiplay IPTV middleware solution. "SeaChange and Argela are combining our deep know-how and experience for a best-of-breed IPTV solution," Hakan Erdemli, VP of sales and marketing at Argela, said in a prepared statement. "The joint solution will allow operators to offer IPTV service; hence increase revenues and customer loyalty through innovative and distinguished services. We are confident that our strong partnership with SeaChange will allow us to keep bringing value to our customers globally." Argela bills its multiplay IPTV middleware as allowing operators to open up multimedia control capabilities to third parties, while giving "complete control" of those third parties to the operators. This, the company claims, means that operators can offer media streaming, video communication, interactive video games and high-speed Internet access in a secure and reliable environment along with basic IPTV functionality. SeaChange, meanwhile, bills TV Navigator as a next-generation client platform for telco, cable and hybrid operators that accelerates the creation and delivery of revenue-generating IPTV applications. Services enabled by the platform, according to the company, include time-shifted TV, games, DVD's-on-demand, and TV-based caller ID and other IMS applications. According to the company, TV Navigator applications are fully customizable, or can be built from the ground up to reflect an operator's brand identity and the capabilities of its set-top infrastructure.
--Top-10 US cable operator, Suddenlink Communications, is using the company's Axiom On Demand content-delivery platform to power its new VOD service roll-out (note: Suddenlink, which previously offered VOD in West Virginia, began a market-by-market roll-out to its other service areas in September). The Suddenlink deployment sees the platform deployed in a central location where it is working in conjunction with Motorola video servers to deliver on-demand content to 23 different markets (according to SeaChange, the deployment is one of the first in which Axiom is controlling third-party video servers): Axiom software running at Suddenlink's College Station, Texas media operations center is controlling nine Motorola video servers to provide VOD to customers in a service area that covers several thousand square miles; the operation receives content centrally, propagates it across the Suddenlink backbone to video servers distributed throughout the service area, and then streams content to end-users. "From the outset, our goal was to build a centralized VOD operation that spanned multiple DAC's and markets, minimized equipment and network elements, and leveraged our national backbone while minimizing the need to have operational VOD personnel in every market," Gregg Grigaitis, Suddenlink's VP of advanced technology, said in a prepared statement. "We identified SeaChange's Axiom software to serve as the heart of the system, driving our Motorola video servers. Given our longtime use of SeaChange's digital advertising systems, taking the incremental step to VOD was easy in that we were able to leverage existing operational facilities and resources. Looking ahead, we now have an infrastructure in place to easily support incremental VOD initiatives such as advertising and interactive applications." In addition to providing Suddenlink with its Axiom software, SeaChange--through its SeaChange Professional Services arm--served as the primary integrator for the operator's VOD deployment and as the first point of contact for all related support issues.
--Buckeye CableSystem has upgraded its existing SeaChange-powered VOD platform to include new software and flash memory servers from the company. The upgrade is intended to support the launch of HD content on the platform, which is available to Buckeye's 90,000 digital subscribers in Ohio and Michigan (mostly located in the Toledo area), and to handle increasing usage of the operator's VOD service: Buckeye claims that the service is now generating close to 250,000 requests a month, representing an increase of nearly 3,000% since its launch in 2004. The upgrade sees the most popular content on the service being stored using SeaChange MediaServer FMS 200 flash memory-based servers, while long-tail content is stored on HDS 601 hybrid disk-based servers. According to SeaChange, the new servers add over 7,000 streams to Buckeye's VOD capacity, which is managed by a newly deployed version of SeaChange's Axiom On Demand software. "The combination of SeaChange flash servers to stream our hottest content, coupled with the hybrid disk servers operating in a centralized capacity, forms an ideal storage and streaming architecture," Jim Brown, director of engineering at Buckeye CableSystem, said in a prepared statement. "Upgrading the intelligence of the Axiom On Demand software has enabled us to build an incredibly robust platform on which to roll out our HD VOD offering, and ensures that our customers enjoy a quality viewing experience every time."

--UK cable operator, Virgin Media, is using the company's AdPulse On Demand advertising-insertion technology to power a trial of dynamic advertising on its VOD platform. The three-month trial, which began in October and which is being held on Virgin Media's North London systems, sees ads from such high-profile brands as Kellogg's, John Lewis and Royal Mail broadcast around selected on-demand programs from Virgin Media TV, Channel 4 and Warner TV. The AdPulse technology is being used to insert ads before and after on-demand content in real time, with the goal of keeping campaigns up-to-date and specific to region and daypart. According to Virgin Media, the trial is matching ads to program genres, testing a range of ad lengths (including 30-second pre-rolls, consecutive pre-rolls and end rolls), and updating campaigns weekly. The number of ads will be capped and there will be a limit on the volume of programs that will have ads placed around them, the operator says. Other companies participating in the trial include the On Demand Group, which is providing content aggregation services, and Rentrak, which is working with ODG to measure content performance throughout the trial, in order to provide a better understanding of the impact of on-demand advertising on viewer behavior. In addition, IDS and Channel 4 Agency Sales are managing the advertising space for the trial.