itaas, an Atlanta-based company that provides a range of software development, integration and testing services for interactive TV (including ETV/EBIF, tru2way and IPTV solutions), announced Wednesday that it has secured an agreement with Cisco that designates it as the source for ongoing enhancements to and support for the existing Scientific-Atlanta Resident Application (SARA) viewing guide for Cisco's Explorer set-top box platform.
Under the terms of the deal, itaas says, it will provide feature updates and product enhancements requested by Cisco, as well as updates and enhancements requested of it directly by MSO's. "itaas is a great partner and has been providing support to developers and service providers on SARA, PowerTV and the Cisco headend," Jeff Seebeck, VP of product strategy and development for Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group, said in a prepared statement. "Leveraging itaas' experience with next-generation platform development is a win for both Cisco and our customers."
According to itaas, feature updates to the SARA guide will be guided by Cisco's product teams, and software releases will still undergo system verification and testing (SVT) in Cisco's labs prior to release. This "stringent" testing process, the company says, will also be required for enhancements to the guide that are developed by itaas at the direct request of MSO's. "We are very excited to add enhancement capability to Cisco's SARA viewing guide, along with SARA support for the MSO's, to our portfolio of services," itaas president and CEO, Vibha Rustagi, said in a prepared statement. "Our customers across the industry can count on us to provide development and support for all aspects of the digital technologies and tools that they deploy. Adding SARA support is another way that itaas will provide updates to the user experience of TV, along with EBIF, tru2way and IPTV."
