SeaChange International said one of its key customers, Liberty Global, will use the vendor’s Adrenalin multiscreen video platform to help power the MSO’s next-gen, cloud-based “Horizon 4” services.

SeaChange announced the deal on solid Q3 results. Shares were up 60 cents (21.43%) to $3.40 in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Financial terms of the new Liberty Global deal were not disclosed, but it keeps SeaChange firmly engaged with a major global operator with deployments across Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America.

The cloud-based approach will support a virtualized video platform architecture for Horizon, and enable Liberty Global develop and deploy services at a faster pace, SeaChange said.

“As video platforms transition to virtualized cloud infrastructure and enable advanced capabilities such as replay TV and network DVR to multiple devices, SeaChange will continue to support customers like Liberty Global to monetize their video assets and modernize their video delivery platforms,” Ed Terino, SeaChange’s CEO, said in a statement.

SeaChange, which has been undergoing a restructuring and facing calls by an investor to sell the company, announced the deal as it disclosed Q3 financial results.

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SeaChange posted Q3 revenues of $23.4 million, up 17% year-on-year, and GAAP income of $900,000 (3 cents per fully diluted share), versus a year-ago loss of $8.4 million (24 cents per share). It ended the period with cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities of about $37 million, and no debt outstanding.

“SeaChange's financial performance in the quarter represents excellent progress in reaching our year-end goals more quickly. Across all metrics - revenues, gross margins and non-GAAP EPS - we outperformed our guidance,” CFO Peter Faubert said.

SeaChange expects Q4 revenues of $20 million to $24 million, and a loss from operations of $0.03 per basic share to operating income of $0.05 per fully diluted share.

For the full fiscal 2018, SeaChange raised expected revenues to the range of $77 million to $81 million, and a narrowed GAAP loss of 14 cents to 22 cents per basic share.

SeaChange plans to introduce a new release of Adrenalin, its multiscreen video backoffice system, later this month, as well as a new release of Infusion, the company’s linear and VOD ad insertion product, for its OTT-focused Rave platform.

SeaChange has not yet announced the full capabilities of those releases yet, but “one of the key capabilities of the next release of Adrenalin will be 4K TV” as well as a “business management system” that will help customers provide more promotional offers for VOD, Ed Terino, SeaChange’s CEO, said Tuesday on the company’s fiscal Q1 earnings call that provided an update on SeaChange’s product roadmap.

“We currently have a fairly sizable number of installed Adrenalin customers and some of the features and functions that we're putting into the new releases are designed to help our customers drive their own revenues,” said Terino, who replaced ousted SeaChange CEO Jay Samit in April.

Terino noted that all of the company’s video and advertising products will be deployable in cloud or “on-premises” environments.

On the financial front, SeaChange posted a loss of $9.6 million (28 cents per share) on revenues of $21.6 million, down 7% due largely to a decrease in revenues tied to Nucleus, SeaChange’s CPE software platform.

However, overall product revenues rose by 33% as SeaChange migrated its remaining Axiom customers to its Adrenalin platform.

Though SeaChange is trying to build a customer pipeline for Rave, its cloud-based OTT product, the company doesn’t expect to see “significant revenue contribution” from it until fiscal 2017.

“Our goal is to build and convert that pipeline into double-digit customer base by the end of fiscal 2017,” Terino said.

He also shed more light on the strategy behind SeaChange’s recent acquisition of DCC Labs, a Warsaw, Poland-based software developer and integrator for set-tops and multiscreen devices that SeaChange will use to strengthen its ability to support the Reference Design Kit (RDK) as well as other platforms, including Android TV.

Marek Kielczewski, SeaChange's new SVP of CPE, who joined the company via the acquisition, said he’s working on a “long-term go-to-market plan to take the in-home business forward.”

The focal point, he said, is to target next-gen user experiences for a wide range of devices and platforms. “We want to make it easier for our customers to deploy our client software and to field with a cross-platform, attractive and intuitive UI,” Kielczewski said.

SeaChange International’s position at Liberty Global and the competitive OTT threat posed by MLB Advanced Media were among the hotter topics on the multiscreen video tech company’s fourth quarter call on Thursday morning.

SeaChange, whose product line include its Nucleus software for set-tops and gateways and its Adrenalin multiscreen video backoffice, among others, took a cautious tone with respect to growth activity  in general and, in particular, with Liberty Global.

“I want to be as conservative as possible, because we do not control when Liberty expands and announces their expansions and takes down more licenses [for Nucleus],” SeaChange CEO Jay Samit said in response to a suggestion from an analyst that guidance (SeaChange expects first quarter revenues to be in the range of $22 million to $24 million) showed that SeaChange isn’t seeing a lot of momentum in Nucleus or Adrenalin. “It’s baked, it’s running great, it's doing phenomenal in Poland, but I do not control that timing. So to bake that into our numbers we know it will be a slow build quarter-by-quarter. This isn’t a back-ended year or some big hockey stick year.”

But he does expect another “significant decline in our legacy products,” offset by new design wins for Adrenalin and Nucleus.

Samit also addressed opportunities for Rave, its new software-as-a-service for premium OTT video platform, noting that SeaChange is responding to RFPs, just completed a Rave trial with a telco, and is in a trial with a long-standing customer of its previous-gen Axiom VOD backoffice platform. BBC Worldwide and Algar Telecom of Brazil are among SeaChange’s known Rave customers.

“We’re getting the calls from all the right customers,” Samit said, but acknowledged that he doesn’t expect Rave to “translate into GAAP for this year.”

With respect to Rave, SeaChange was also asked to address the general OTT competitive landscape, including some recent momentum by MLB Advanced Media, which includes some work with HBO and the premium programmer's Internet video products, including its new stand-alone service, HBO Now. 

SeaChange, Samit said, is “dealing with a number of major media companies out there and we're not running across MLB, except in Wall Street Journal articles. They have got great technology, but they haven't set themselves up yet to really handle being in the service business, and that's one of our great advantages in that.”

On the financial front, SeaChange posted a fiscal fourth quarter net loss of $6.1 million (19 cents  per share), on revenues of $31.3 million, versus $35.6 million in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were expecting a loss of 4 cents per share.

SeaChange shares closed down $1.05 (13.13%) to $6.95 each on Thursday.

SeaChange International, the video software and services specialist, announced Monday that it will reduce its global employee base by 10% as part of an effort to streamline operations that will result in annualized cost savings of about $11 million when the process is completed.

SeaChange said it implemented the workforce reduction in the U.S. and, in order to comply with non-U.S. legal requirements, will implement the moves on an international basis “over the next several fiscal quarters.”

SeaChange did not disclose the number of employees that would be affected. It finished its last fiscal year, ended Jan. 31, 2014, with 723 employees worldwide, including 382 in the U.S.

SeaChange said it also expects those actions to result in restructuring and severance charges of about $1.3 million in its fourth quarter for fiscal 2015. SeaChange is scheduled to report its fourth quarter and full fiscal 2015 results in early April. 

SeaChange, which has become a software-focused company in recent years, is making these moves after building two next-gen products – Adrenalin, its multiscreen video backoffice platform, and Nucleus, a software platform for set-tops and gateways that includes optional support for the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the project being managed by Comcast, Time  Warner Cable and Liberty Global.

Those products are now deployed and in a “mature state,” said SeaChange CEO Jay Samit, who was appointed to the post in October 2014, succeeding Raghu Rau.

Samit said the streamlining was necessary in order to keep SeaChange growing, expand its toolsets and to ensure it’s in a position to innovate.

“Our industry is in a major shift,” he said, referring to a new wave of OTT products from new players and traditional MVPDs, and amid a trend that is seeing more and more programmers develop direct-to-consumer products. “All of these people need our technology.”

Of recent note, SeaChange acquired Timeline Labs last December, adding a California-based firm that helps broadcasters, cable channels and other media companies keep tabs on social trends and track audience engagement.

On the product side, the Acton, Mass.-based vendor has rolled out Rave, a platform targeted to “premium” over-the-top video that relies on Adrenalin. SeaChange also announced that Nucleus will be used by Layer3 TV, an emerging “virtual” MVPD based in Denver that’s expected to launch a product later this year.