--Is Eyeing Acquisitions, Plans to Launch Product to Enable Operators to Offer App Stores
Interactive TV software developer, Zodiac Interactive (note: the company recently launched version 2.5 of its PowerUp ITV Framework--see the article published on itvt.com, January 12th), announced Monday that its EBIF user agent is successfully operating in conjunction with applications from multiple vendors and development environments within the cable ITV ecosystem, including NDS for addressable EBIF-based interactive ads to individual Cisco (Scientific-Atlanta) set-top boxes. The company also says that its EBIF user agent is being deployed by several top-10 North American MSO's that are gearing up for commercial EBIF deployments in the first half of 2010, in order to enable applications including tcommerce, addressable and targeted advertising, and TV widgets such as telescoping to long-form content, voting, polling, click-to-call, caller ID, movie guides, local search and more. Zodiac claims that its EBIF agent is "uniquely fully compliant" with CableLabs' EBIF spec.
According to Zodiac, EBIF deployments "will come fast and furious from MSO's," thanks to the US cable industry's Canoe initiative. EBIF, which had already been deployed in around 25 million set-tops by the end of 2009, will start generating revenues for cable MSO's by the first half of this year, the company claims. "Our EBIF player/agent works well with all environments and applications because it follows the CableLabs' EBIF spec, without waver," Zodiac CEO, Brandon Brown, said in a prepared statement. "Because the user agent was built from the ground up based on CableLabs specs, we can assure applications will run properly across various environments including legacy and new set-tops and ITV-enabled TVs, and more importantly, without another layer of integration concern. The North American cable industry is looking to EBIF's simple interactive capabilities as a step toward a more advanced ITV experience, but all EBIF players must carefully follow the specs to avoid interoperability issues, and most don't, which is why ITV still hasn't hit mass adoption. Zodiac's EBIF player/agent gives operators the jump start they need to bring interactivity to the TV--no other EBIF agent can cross both legacy set-top boxes and next-gen TV's and set-tops, which is a key differentiator for Zodiac."
In a recent interview with Cable Digital News's Jeff Baumgartner, Zodiac CEO Brown revealed that the company may begin to pursue acquisitions this year, in a bid to maintain its revenue growth--though he conceded that its acquisition plans have not yet "gone past the first phase of due diligence." While Brown wouldn't say which companies Zodiac might be interested in acquiring, he did apparently intimate that the company is interested in acquisitions that provide it with over-the-top (OTT) capabilities. Brown also claimed that Zodiac has been in the black since its founding back in 2002 and has enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 100%--though he added that, as a result of the recent/ongoing (depending whom one believes) recession, that growth rate has slowed to between 15 and 20%.
In addition, Brown revealed that Zodiac has secured two MSO-wide deals for its PowerUp product, involving around 10 million set-tops, and that one of its new MSO customers also plans to use a new design kit that the company is launching for third-party app developers. According to Brown, the kit will launch in Q2 or Q3 and will allow operators to create their own app stores with free, paid and subscription-based apps.
