VOD Technology Provider, SeaChange, Achieves TL 9000 Certification

VOD, IPTV and digital advertising technology provider, SeaChange International, announced Tuesday that it has achieved TL 9000 certification. The company is trumpeting the fact that it achieved the certification across multiple company locations, in less than two years, despite the certification process taking place "during a period of vigorous global expansion marked by the establishment of new facilities in several countries, a company acquisition and significant growth in its employee base." It says that it is only the fourth company to date to achieve TL 9000 certification (TL12957) for hardware, software and service in product category 1.2.7 Application Servers--the others being Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp.

The TL 9000 standard was developed by the QuEST Forum, a consortium of telecommunications suppliers and service providers, using the ISO 9000 international standard as a framework. Holders of TL 9000 certification are, according to SeaChange, supposed to exemplify "global telecommunications quality and industry-wide performance excellence." The company says that it has affirmed its commitment to the standard by appointing a full-time TL 9000 manager to supervise an internal audit program and 16 auditors representing company departments and locations globally. "SeaChange has fully embraced a commitment to develop and implement standards throughout its history, as a basic and vital means to bring digital television into widespread reality," SeaChange CEO, Bill Styslinger, said in a prepared statement. "I congratulate the entire SeaChange organization for its dedication in achieving TL 9000 certification. We're confident that implementing a TL 9000-based quality management system will contribute to our further progress with telco customers globally."

According to SeaChange, TL 9000 certification will benefit its entire range of hardware and software solutions for video storage and streaming, its set-top box applications and middleware, its customer support and professional services organizations, and the various VOD content services offered by its subsidiary, the On Demand Group.

The TL 9000 standard is billed as defining system requirements for the design, development, production, delivery, installation and maintenance of telecom products and services, and as providing a measurement system that allows companies to track performance and improve results. According to the QuEST Forum, it eliminates the need for multiple quality-management standards, thus reducing the cost of doing business and ultimately resulting in better products and services. The organization also claims that it provides a consistent set of quality expectations to drive efficiency and performance across the global telecom supply chain. TL 9000 certification is awarded based on an audit process, which, in SeaChange's case, was carried out by National Quality Assurance.