Consolidation Is the Talk of IBC: Will Imagine, Harmonic Be Next?

Conversations at this year's IBC inevitably veer toward the major acquisitions that have just taken place—and those soon to come.

考虑到最近几天的情况埃森哲收购S3, 爱立信收购Envivio, Amazon Web Services grab Elemental Technologies, 特纳抓住了iStreamPlanet，这并不奇怪. The consensus is that more big deals are in the works.

"We're going to continue to see that and we're going to see massive consolidation in the industry with relatively few players able to supply end-to-end services,博士说。. Shay David, chief revenue officer and co-founder at 创作. Next year's IBC will have more customers, but fewer vendors, he adds.

下一个被买的是谁? Imagine Communications and Harmonic, David guesses. He sees Harmonic as an especially attractive target right now, 市盈率为1.5倍.

Several factors contribute to the consolidation trend, 大卫说. Smaller players are having a difficult time providing profitable services. Building one function into a sustainable business is hard nowadays; there's strength in numbers. Buyers, meanwhile, are looking for providers that can deliver comprehensive offerings. The market is moving too quickly for multi-year OTT projects that require eight different vendors, 他说.

The 创作 booth is bustling, Shay says content owners are coming to buy. "OTT is happening now; it's not some future prospect," 他说. The companies he's talking to have either already selected their partners or are in the process of selecting.

Industry consolidation plays to 创作's strengths, 大卫说, as it's one of the larger vendors and can supply and end-to-end solution. 他的公司的使命是保持独立, 他说, since there's a strong demand for an independent company that can offer full-service carrier-grade solutions. Ericsson and Cisco are 创作's chief competitors, he notes.

When not entertaining prospective or current customers, 创作 is talking up its two big IBC announcements. 几天前，它推出了MediaX, a group of components that help content owners add value while creating revenue opportunities. MediaX includes cloud DVR, metadata enrichment, big data predictive analysis components. 创作 saw a need for business logic to connect these services to revenue opportunities.

“使用有线电视, 卫星电视提供商, mobile providers that are entering into OTT we realized that there is a need for a business layer and business logic that allows carriers to maximize revenue from a cloud DVR,大卫说. “这类产品是一种商品. The business layer is what makes the cloud DVR a great experience for the customer and good business solution for the operator."

创作最近还推出了OTT Now, a lower-cost option for content owners that want to go to market quickly. While the customer-facing elements are all completely customizable, 后端是模板驱动的，并且是固定的. 创作 says customers could be up and running with OTT services in two months, but 大卫说 it could take as little as three days if a company only wants to add logos and do a minimum of customization.

"OTT Now is an OTT solution out-of the-box that allows a content rights holder, 一个电视台, operator to launch an OTT service in a matter of weeks and not months,戴维斯说.

OTT Now允许订阅, 事务, 以及广告支持的产品, 并为网络创建店面, iOS, 和Android平台. 价格从25万美元到50万美元不等.