Comcast Business said Wednesday it has agreed to purchase Plano, Texas-based Masergy, a maker of software-defined networking and cloud platforms for global business, for an undisclosed sum.

The deal is in line with Comcast Business’s efforts to increase its reach in large and mid-sized companies, particularly U.S.-based organizations with multi-site global operations.  

“Masergy provides a perfect complement to our portfolio of enterprise services and solutions and will allow us to instantly and dramatically amplify our growth in the global enterprise market,” Comcast Business president Bill Stemper said in a press release. “We’re excited to welcome Masergy’s employees and leadership to Comcast Business as we bring continued innovation and superior experience to our customers.” 

Also Read: Comcast Combines Vudu and FandangoNow

According to Comcast, Masergy has more than 1,400 customers in nearly 100 countries and the combination of Comcast Business’s fiber network and Masergy’s services will enable Comcast Business customers to manage their international operations and networks more efficiently and securely.

“On behalf of everyone at Masergy, we are thrilled to join the Comcast Business family and are extremely excited for the next chapter of Masergy,” Masergy chairman and CEO Chris MacFarland said in a press release. “We are confident that together we can significantly enhance our service offerings to businesses of all sizes in their journey to the cloud.”

With two years to go before it has to light up 70% of the country with its proposed 5G wireless service, Dish Network said it has inked a “strategic collaboration agreement” with online giant Amazon’s Amazon Web Services, selecting Las Vegas as the first city to receive service. 

Dish shares were up 5.4% ($2.01 each) in early trading April 21 to $38.90 per share on the news. The stock was priced at $38.70 per share, up 5% as of 10:40 a.m. on Wednesday.

Dish has been amassing wireless spectrum for years to build out its network, and last year agreed to buy another $3.6 billion worth of spectrum from T-Mobile over three years, part of the conditions imposed by the feds on the larger wireless company’s purchase of Sprint. As part of that deal, Dish has to build out its network to at least 20% of its footprint by 2022 and 70% by 2023, or risk losing those licenses. 

Also Read: Dish: No Partner Needed for 5G Wireless Dance  

The satellite company is basing its 5G offering on Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) technology, which utilizes a series of small antennas and base stations to deliver service via the cloud. With that tech focus, AWS, the most popular cloud provider on the internet, is a natural partner.   

Also Read: Dish Wireless Pushed Forward 

The selection of AWS is the next step in the long process of building the network. In an email message, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett likened the deal to a similar arrangement AWS has with Verizon. 

“It’s certainly far short of the big strategic partnership people so many people have been waiting for,” Moffett said in the email. “ Strip away the marketing-speak, and the press release is really just an announcement that Dish has chosen AWS as a vendor.  What’s missing is any serious reciprocal commitment from AWS. If anything, it reads as less of a strategic partnership than the one that Verizon already has with AWS.”

Dish said the cloud-based service simplifies the process for developers to create new applications. 

“Through this collaboration with AWS, we will operate not just as a communications services provider, but as a digital services provider harnessing the combined power of 5G connectivity and the cloud,” Dish chairman Charlie Ergen said in a press release. “Together, we will enable our customers to take full advantage of the potential of 5G. Our approach will revolutionize wireless connectivity by giving customers the ability to customize and scale their network experience on-demand. 

“As a new carrier, leveraging AWS and its extensive network of partners enables us to differentiate ourselves by operating our 5G network with a high degree of automation, utilizing the talent of AWS-trained developers and helping our customers bring new 5G applications to market faster than ever before,” he continued.

Dish has been under the gun to start building the service -- it has to build out 20% of its footprint by the end of 2022 -- and in December issued about $2 billion in convertible notes to help fund the buildout. On its March earnings conference call with analysts, Ergen said that offering, coupled with about $4 billion in cash on hand, gives the satellite company sufficient firepower to build the network.

Dish has said it would cost about $10 billion to build its 5G network, a figure that some analysts have feared is too low. 

“DISH’s cloud-native and truly virtualized 5G network is a clear example of how AWS customers can use our proven infrastructure and unparalleled portfolio of services to reinvent industries,” Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy said in a press release. “This collaboration means Dish and its customers can bring new consumer- and enterprise-centric services to the market as quickly as they’re created to deliver on the promise of 5G. Together, we’re opening the door to new technologies that will transform factories, workplaces, entertainment, and transportation in ways people have only dreamed.”

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen told analysts Monday that its much awaited wireless service is expected to launch in its first major market in Q3, adding that the satellite giant doesn’t necessarily need a strategic partner to help it build what he said is going to be a state-of-the-art 5G network.

Dish has been accumulating spectrum and finalizing plans to build out its wireless system -- it forged a deal with T-Mobile in 2019 where it will pay $3.6 billion over three years for 800MHz spectrum -- and Ergen said its first major market should go live in the third quarter. He didn’t name the city, only to say it will be an NFL market. 

Also Read: Ergen: We Stumbled with Sling TV 

Ergen also put the kibosh on speculation as to who Dish’s strategic partner in the wireless venture will be. Early on, the Dish chairman speculated that he would need a deep-pocketed partner -- some had speculated it would be Amazon -- to help him build out the service. Now, fresh off a convertible notes offering in December that raised $2 billion, and with about $4 billion in cash on its balance sheet, Ergen said Dish has the funding he needs. He likened the company’s current situation to the early days of the satellite TV business. 

“I think we always thought we might need a strategic partner when we didn’t have any capital,” Ergen said, referring to the early days of Dish’s satellite business. But just like that time, he said once the company’s vision became clear, and it began to hit execution milestones, that partner was no longer needed.

Also Read: Dish Loses 133,000 Subs But 4Q Earnings Increase 

“Ultimately, we got confident enough and good enough in what we were doing, that it just made sense to keep the equity,” Ergen continued. “And it didn’t make sense to give up the equity. I think we’re probably in a similar situation today, in the sense that we do have enough capital on our balance sheet today to build our network.”

In the past, Ergen had estimated that its wireless network would cost about $10 billion to build, although some analysts have said that figure may be dangerously low. 

Although Dish may not need a partner to get its wireless service off the ground, it will likely need one after its launches have passed the test phase. Ergen said that already Dish has enlisted tower companies as partners and has other companies in the pipeline. The company has said earlier that one of its next steps would be in seeking out an agreement with a cloud provider like Oracle, Microsoft or Amazon.  While that decision hasn’t been made yet, Ergen said the network’s cloud provider has to be “best in class technically” and there are several vendors that can live up to that criteria. Later, EVP of corporate development Tom Cullen, said “We clearly expect our cloud partner will have to bring a go-to-market component to the relationship.” 

Dish’s wireless network will utilize Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) architecture, which Ergen said allows for more flexibility, lower costs and the network slicing capabilities of its cloud-native technology should be attractive to enterprise business customers.

“So they can have what looks like their own network, and they get access to the data in the cloud where they can actually use that data to make a better product,  a less expensive product and a safer product,” Ergen said. 

Ergen said he isn’t expecting the first market launch for the wireless product to go without a hitch. Like most new rollouts, he expects some glitches, but added Dish will work quickly to iron out any bugs by the time the next market goes live. Dish is up against federal deadlines to have about 20% of the country covered by June 2022, and 70% by June of 2023. 

“We’re not going to be running on our first city, we’ll be crawling,” Ergen said. “And hopefully we’ll be walking by the end of the year.”

At the same time, Dish will be facing a big shakeup in its Boost prepaid wireless business. In its 10-K annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dish noted that it has been informed by T-Mobile that it will discontinue its CDMA network on Jan. 1, 2022. Dish said the majority of Boost customers ride on the T-Mobile CDMA network, meaning that once the network is shutdown, Dish will have to provide a huge number of customers with new devices. On the call, Ergen doubted that could be done.

Ergen said that most Boost customers are “economically challenged” and having to upgrade from one phone that works on the CDMA network to another phone that works on a different network, could be a burden. In addition, that new phone wouldn’t work on Dish’s new network, because it is 5G. 

“If you run the numbers on that, and there would be significant fallout in my opinion,” Ergen said. “The second thing is, I don't even think we could get the supply of the phones we would need. You can’t order phones and not know that you could move the phones, and the supply is somewhat limited of the phones we would need for that.”

On the positive side, he said the Boost team  has shown that they can turn around things in a short period of time. Later, he hinted that there may be a regulatory solution. 

Asked later if he had contacted the Federal Communications Commission about T-Mobile’s CDMA shutdown, Ergen said he hadn’t spoken to the agency personally, but it is possible one of his staff may have. He added he believed T-Mobile’s decision to discontinue the CDMA service is anti-competitive.

“I can’t speak to the motivations,” Ergen said. “But what we can say is that one of the beneficiaries of a premature turn off of the CDMA network would be T-Mobile.” 

Comcast said it has purchased Dublin, Ireland-based tech company Blueface, a move that is expected to beef up its business services unit.

Blueface makes a proprietary and customizable cloud voice platform that will be added to Comcast’s business services offerings.

“The addition of Blueface’s Unified Communications (UC) solution to the Comcast Business portfolio will provide customers access to industry-leading audio and video tools to connect employees across devices and locations,” Comcast Business president Bill Stemper said in a press release. “Whether connecting within a company or directly to customers, Blueface technology, powered by Comcast Business, will provide businesses a seamless communications experience. We look forward to delivering innovative solutions that enable businesses to help power employee productivity and extraordinary customer experiences in 2020 and beyond.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Comcast said Blueface will continue to operate as it does today, and will be an integral business unit within Comcast Business to service its existing global customer base. As part of the announcement, Comcast Business and Blueface have expressed a commitment to job creation in Dublin and will be hiring across software development, engineering, program management, and sales functions.

“Blueface is the only truly global Unified Communications-as-a-Service platform that can equip service providers with a customized unified communications solution for businesses large and small,” Blueface CEO Alan Foy said in a press release. “We are thrilled to join Comcast and work with the Comcast Business team to invest in and scale our technology roadmap to create compelling B2B product offerings. Together, we will enable businesses to connect better with an unmatched network and suite of communication tools that enable improved employee productivity.”

AT&T has entered into a $2 billion agreement with Microsoft, in which the telecom company will use the enterprise technology company’s Azure cloud infrastructure to, among other things, shift most of its 250,000 employees to the Microsoft Office 365 suite of productivity and security tools.

Beyond providing internal software tools, the pact with Microsoft includes the joint development of artificial intelligence tools and applications for 5G wireless.

The non-exclusive deal still allows AT&T to see other clouds—AT&T for example, just announced yesterday a separate multi-billion deal with IBM for cloud-based services.

“AT&T and Microsoft are among the most committed companies to fostering technology that serves people,” said John Donovan, CEO, AT&T Communications, in a statement. “By working together on common efforts around 5G, the cloud, and AI, we will accelerate the speed of innovation and impact for our customers and our communities.”

According to research firm Canalys, Amazon Web Services remained the dominant cloud services provider in the fourth quarter, controlling 32% of a global cloud business worth $23 billion during the period. Azure controlled just 16% of the market, vs. 14% in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Microsoft has recently pulled off big deals for Azure with retailers including Gap, Kroger, Albertsons and Walmart, companies who have no interest in seeing competitor Amazon enjoy any further prosperity.

Added Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: “AT&T is at the forefront of defining how advances in technology, including 5G and edge computing, will transform every aspect of work and life. The world’s leading companies run on our cloud, and we are delighted that AT&T chose Microsoft to accelerate its innovation. Together, we will apply the power of Azure and Microsoft 365 to transform the way AT&T’s workforce collaborates and to shape the future of media and communications for people everywhere.”

Verizon Digital Media Services announced that it’s bringing its global enterprise-grade streaming platform to Microsoft Azure.

Offering a full array of Azure services, the VDMS product will enable broadcasters, content owners and streaming platform operators a cloud-based tool for delivering personalized streaming services to customers.

Microsoft’s Azure customers already have access to Verizon’s Edgecast CDN. Now, new and current customers will be able to use the full VDMS streaming platform running natively in the cloud.

Microsoft will market the VDMS platform through its own sales force. The announcement was made ahead of next week’s NAB show in Las Vegas.

“Cloud, edge and AI technologies will play a fundamental role in the future of video content delivery and workflows,” said Scott Guthrie, executive VP of Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Group. “Our work with Verizon will give our mutual customers unparalleled access to one of the world’s leading streaming products, with pre-integrated AI for actionable insights by key business stakeholders.”

Related: Verizon Digital Media Services Expands Network Capacity, Debuts 4K, Multi-CDN and QOS Capabilities

Added Ralf Jacob, president Verizon Digital Media Services: “Paired with Azure’s global scale we can now deliver high performing, simplified video workflows to content creators anywhere. Our partnership will create new opportunities for Verizon, Microsoft and our joint customers to shape the future of media.”

TV is TV no matter how or where it is consumed, making traditional TV and over-the-top video synonymous. The viewer is now setting the tone and demanding the content they love wherever, whenever and however they choose.

To meet the increasing demands for this ecosystem, operators are reconsidering their offerings, as well as their technology and operations platforms. If pay TV players can understand and address current trends such as integrating various sources of content, running cloud operations and offering more flexibility, they are well on their way to integrating a strategy for success.

Here are the top trends pay TV service providers should address in 2019.

Fulfilling the Super-Aggregator Role: It is time for the service provider to embrace its role as super aggregator, a player that is consumer-facing, boasts a large user base, and is primarily a branded content distributor that delivers superior value for consumers through choice, flexible packages, price and convenience. Consumers are demanding the ability to get to the content they love in a simple way. This implies that UIs and backend business and security services platforms must create a bridge between content silos by elegantly harnessing multiple content bouquets even across multiple apps.

Beyond aggregating scripted drama SVOD services, sports will be the next genre to be seamlessly integrated. Sports leagues, teams and rights owners are working to create even more unique connections with fans worldwide, adding stats and exclusive content. With ESPN+ and various sports properties ramping up their investments in direct-to-consumer streaming strategies, 2019 will be a game-changer. This presents a challenge and an opportunity to both those direct-to-consumer sports providers (channels, leagues and clubs) and to MVPD players to make this content accessible to the consumer on their preferred device,

Actionable Analytics for Maximum Business Impact: Pay TV service providers must also adapt to a world where OTT and social media platforms, such as Netflix and Facebook, have built their success on the ability to capture, analyze and act on data to deliver a consumer-driven experience. 

With the right technology choices and business-focused approach, it is now possible for pay TV providers to leverage data, advanced analytics and AI to automate business decisions that reduce churn, deliver more relevant advertising, personalize content recommendations and help companies optimize the full value and cost of their content portfolio. Through actionable insight, service providers can deliver better business results and free up resources for next-generation platform investments.

Cloud-Driven Content Protection: As part of these considerations, cloud strategies are at the top of everyone’s mind to address the challenges of the next generation of content delivery. Delivering premium services directly to consumer devices implies leveraging the flexibility of a modular backend cloud-based content security infrastructure. This includes direct-to-TV security, connected set-top box security and Android TV security, while not forgetting emerging standards such as ATSC 3.0.

Android TV Going Strong: Android TV provides the opportunity to have an operator-tier branded UEX, Google TV services and direct-carrier billing. Benefits of this include easier access to third-party OTT, deep linking for additional search benefits, and advanced voice-driven technology while bringing cost savings and faster time-to-market. When implemented even in its basic form, operators can achieve a baseline “all in one place” aggregation, beyond any built-in casting capability from a vast collection of mobile apps. However, the challenge is to ensure any service built on the platform is secure, protecting both the content owners and consumers’ data. This requires end-to-end multidevice and multinetwork content value protection for broadcast and OTT premium content.

Evolution of Content Protection: Offering valuable content on different devices with changing business models can be a content-protection nightmare for service providers that are not prepared. With the right tools in place, content can remain secure, successfully countering the growing and varied number of piracy threats, while also meeting the requirements of their content providers. Players in the ecosystem need a unified and flexible platform for managing all content security requirements, as well as tackling piracy head on with the latest innovations in anti-piracy services and watermarking. For example, with streaming piracy’s global impact, a smart approach is to effectively mark content delivered through set-top boxes or consumer streaming devices in order to be able to trace the source of a leak, and then use an anti-piracy service to monitor, track and take down pirate services.

This approach is especially relevant in live sports, where streaming piracy is a growing threat. Fighting off pirate streaming services with protection strategies, anti-piracy services and watermarking technology protects the value of this content, as well as the business model of sports rightsholders.

OTT Sports Streaming: With a scalable, low-latency streaming technology, sports leagues and teams can now also deliver the kind of immersive and mobile digital fan experience that younger consumers expect. Fan engagement can be boosted, before, during and far after the game is over, with sports OTT content directly delivered to consumers worldwide, to any device, including Android TV. The data that is collected through this engagement over time can be leveraged with an AI platform to optimize monetization strategies moving forward.

Evolving Business Models: According to research, industry executives anticipate a decline in the conventional and linear “big channel bundle” pay TV services. They predict growth will instead come from skinny bundles, personalized packages, subscription OTT services, advanced advertising and content owner direct-to-consumer services, including all content sources and features that can be smartly re-aggregated and added to multi-play network bundles and other adjacent Smart Home services. The key to drive top and bottom line benefits from this digital transformation phase will be to build flexibility into the core technology platform while leveraging data to make smart business-driven decisions.

With it being a dynamic time in the industry, there are many opportunities and possibilities to consider when working to evolve in 2019. Those who choose not to take proactive action take might not success. Service providers who prioritize continuous innovation and address these trends, however, will evolve with the quickly changing market and come out on top.

Ivan Verbesselt is senior vice president of marketing at NAGRA.

Cloud-based video services vendor Brightcove has announced the $15 million purchase of Ooyala’s video online video platform (OVP) business.

Boston-based Brightcove said during it’s fourth-quarter earnings all Wednesday that the deal consist of $6.25 million in cash and the rest in Brightcove shares.

Brightcove said it’s acquiring Santa Clara, Calif.-based Ooyala’s OVP technology, including video content management and publishing platform Backlot, Analytics, Live, and its underlying intellectual property and associated patents. Brightcove will acquire “substantial portions’ of Ooyala’s engineering, support and sales staff, including the company’s operations in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Related: Telstra Sells Ooyala to Management after $500M Write-Off

Speaking during Wednesday’s earnings call (transcript courtesy of Seeking Alpha), Brightcove CEO Jeff Ray said the deal “makes clear who the undisputed leader is in OVP. And as you know, when you are the market leader, customers and prospects naturally include you in RFPs, they naturally come to you and that gives us we think a great advantage.

“We also have an opportunity to open up to new markets,” Ray added. “They’ve got some geographies, some great well-known customers in geographies where we aren’t very strong or not present at all and we’re excited about the ability to help that accelerate our global expansion. They do have a partner community. It’s robust and we’re very eager to engage with those partners and fold them into our partnership strategy.”

Ooyala was founded in 2007 and subsequently purchased by Australian telecom Telstra. Ooyala management bought the company out in October, following Telstra’s $500 million write-down. Although OVP generated the bulk of Ooyala’s revenue at the time, company CEO Jonathan Huberman said he saw more opportunity in the workflow tools side of the business. 

Amazon Web Services has announced the rollout of a new cloud-based service for the contribution, distribution and secure sharing of live video.

Just emerging from a private beta, AWS Elemental MediaConnect is already touting a client list that includes The Pac 12 Network, Discovery, ITV and Arqiva,

The “console”-based workflow service allows broadcasters of live content to ingest their video into the cloud, securely transmitting it to distribution parters, or replicating it to multiple destinations.

“Basically, it’s a robust, flexible secure, transport service for sharing video into the cloud, around the cloud and out of the cloud,” said Aslam Khader, chief product officer for AWS Elemental, speaking to MCN. “It’s a console service, with fully managed capabilities. It’s auto scaling and self healing, and you pay as you go. Customers only pay when they turn on the service, and they stop paying when they turn it off.”

Content creators are increasingly turning to cloud-based service providers for video workflow management, given the efficiency and cost saving relative to building and managing expensive production workflow infrastructures.

Among the service’s users, AWS said UK communications infrastructure company Arqiva has been using MediaConnect to power its recently launched virtualized OTT and on-demand media management services.

Discovery, meanwhile, has also transitioned most of its workflows to AWS.

“The cloud helps us reduce physical infrastructure spending and we are excited to use the capabilities of AWS Elemental MediaConnect to reliably bring broadcast quality content to the AWS Cloud. It opens the door more fully to leverage cloud-native distribution to partners and affiliates as we take our content around the globe on all platforms,” said Brinton Miller, exec VP of technology ttrategy for Discovery, Inc. 

Amazon is leading a quartet of partners, which also include Arris’ Ruckus Networks division, Federated Wireless and Athonet, in announcing a partnership to deliver a cloud-based private LTE network solution based on CBRS.

As detailed this week by technology org IEEE, this could be only the first emergence of Amazon’s expansive plans for CBRS spectrum use, with speculation that the technology giant has set up perhaps the largest testing apparatus yet to test CBRS-enabled devices and solutions. More on that further down.

The companies behind the just-announced solution are targeting developers, independent software vendors, telecom operators, the public sector and enterprises—any entity that needs quick deployment of industrial IoT applications such as real-time surveillance, smart meters and worker safety monitoring.

The quorum is billing their solution as a cheaper, more efficient way to build private mobile CBRS networks, as opposed to expensive buildups that require a lot of network hardware, as well as staff acquisition and training.

Related: Arris’ Ruckus Partners with American Tower for CBRS Deployment at ISM Raceway

The solution was announced Tuesday from AWS re:Invent, an event produced by Amazon Web Services being held in Las Vegas. Federated Wireless CEO Iyad Tarazi trumpeted the partnership via his company’s corporate blog.

The partners are using AWS re:Invent to demonstrate the solution using Amazon DeepLens devices, which Amazon is billing as the world’s first deep-learning-enabled video camera for developers.

Major components to the solution include the Ruckus Q710, which is the first CBRS 3.5 GHz indoor LTE access point to achieve FCC certification; the Athonet BubbleCloud, a mobile core designed for private mobile networks; and the Federated Wireless Spectrum Controller, which enables access to massive CBRS shared spectrum for private 4G and 5G networks.

The solution is fully integrated into AWS’ IoT cloud platform.

“This partnership represents a leap in private mobile networks by combining the leading cloud IoT platform with new wireless connectivity solutions to enable every developer to create that next transformational service,” Tarazi said.

Cable and wireless operators, along with their vendor partners, are exploring opportunities for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device band, a 150 MHz-wide portion of largely underused spectrum existing between 3.55 GHz and 3.7 GHz, previously confined to a limited number of military applications.

CBRS will ultimately be used for private LTE networks such as airports and industrial campuses. The FCC is still reviewing the rules for CBRS deployment, but the CBRS Alliance expects that the General Authorized Access portion of the band will begin being used for commercial applications by the end of 2018.

Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice USA are each currently testing various CBRS applications. So are tech companies like Nokia.

But entry of Amazon could be a major disrupter of the telecom giants’ CBRS plans. According to IEEE, a mysterious company called Chrome Enterprises last week filed an application with the FCC to begin testing CBRS-related technology at three Silicon Valley-adjacent locations.

IEEE speculates that Amazon is actually behind this filing, and plans to use three of its facilities to conduct the test of up to 450 prototype devices.

Arris has named four-year company veteran Kevin Wirick to lead its new “Network Intelligence and Automation” business.

The new unit will focus on developing, making and selling cloud-based network management solutions to operator customers. Wirick’s team will operate under the umbrella of Dan Whalen’s Network and Cloud business unit. Wirick will report directly to Whalen.

With Arris clients increasingly using Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) technologies, the vendor said network processing has increased by a factor of 10 to 100. The products developed and sold by Wirick’s team will aim to simplify network provisioning, enable efficient scaling, and provide insights to help reduce operational costs.

Products overseen by the the group include Eco Service Management, a platform that operationalizes the delivery and management of WiFi, triple play and connected home solutions; and ServAssure, which monitors the network pipeline

Wirick joined Arris in 2014 from Motorola and previously led its video network infrastructure business. 

Amazon is denying a Bloomberg Businessweek report that said the Internet company’s AWS Elemental cloud video unit unwittingly integrated servers with spy chips secretly inserted by the Chinese government into the networks of clients including the CIA.

The report said that AWS Elemental, Apple and other U.S. companies purchased motherboards from San Jose, Calif.-based Super Micro Computer Inc. (aka “SuperMicro”) that, without their knowledge, included tiny chips inserted by Chinese operatives in the manufacturing process.

"As we shared with Bloomberg BusinessWeek multiple times over the last couple months, at no time, past or present, have we ever found any issues relating to modified hardware or malicious chips in SuperMicro motherboards in any Elemental or Amazon systems," Amazon said in an emailed statement. "Additionally, we have not engaged in an investigation with the government.”

Related: Amazon Web Services Snaps Up Elemental

Amazon purchased Elemental Technologies for $296 million in September 2015, adding a cloud video company that had a client list that included media companies Comcast, HBO and CBS Interactive, as well as national security ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Navy.

As part of that purchase, Bloomberg reported, Amazon asked Elemental to ship some of its servers to a third-party security auditor. That auditor reportedly found tiny, rice-grain-sized chips on motherboards manufactured by Super Micro—chips that security experts said could only be included in the manufacturing stage.

These chips would allow malicious operators backdoor access to the networks that integrated them. Bloomberg said a “top secret” investigation into the matter is still ongoing.

In a separate statement provided to Bloomberg, Amazon said, “It’s untrue that AWS knew about a supply chain compromise, an issue with malicious chips, or hardware modifications when acquiring Elemental.”

Apple, meanwhile, told the news service, “On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server.”

A Super Micro spokesman, meanwhile, added. “We remain unaware of any such investigation." 

Amazon Web Services said it has locked in a deal to be the “preferred” cloud provider for Turner, which will move “thousands” of virtual machines to AWS to create cloud-native apps for networks and partners such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, CNN, NCAA and the NBA.

Tied in, Turner will move “decades of content” to the cloud, including a 15-petabyte sized library or CNN archive videos.

Turner, which acquired iStreamPlanet in 2015, will also use AWS for services spanning compute, storage, networking, databases, developer tools, analytics and machine learning.

RELATED: Turner Snaps Up iStreamPlanet

Turner is also tapping into AWS’s cloud as it embarks on an IP and virtualization migration/strategy that will enable the programmer to be more agile and launch a mix of more personalized services.

RELATED: Turner’s Unification Theory (subscription required)

“We’re going through the largest technology transformation since Ted Turner started the company, and the advancements we’re making today are enabling us to reimagine what television can be for our viewers,” Jeremy Legg, Turner’s CTO, said in a statement. “We’re changing our broadcast technology stack to a fully digital, cloud environment built on AWS, which will enable us to adapt to new video delivery models, as well as provide our viewers with more personalized content and advertisements.”

Examples of other AWS partners include corporate cousin Amazon Video, AOL, BBC, C-SPAN, Discovery Communications, Hearst Corporation, Hulu, Lionsgate, Netflix, and PBS.

AWS this week introduced a new suite of media services for its streaming video partners.

RELATED: AWS Unit Introduces Media Services Suite

Arris International has promoted industry vet Dan Whalen to president of its Network & Cloud division, which makes and sells broadband and video infrastructure and software products.

He assumes the role previously held by Bruce McClelland, who succeeded Robert Stanzione as CEO effective Sept. 1.  

RELATED: Stepping Up To The Plate

Whalen, who reports to McClelland, previously served as Arris’s SVP and GM of global services. He is also late of Cisco Systems, KPMG and Bell Atlantic.

In Q3, revenues at the Network and Cloud unit had a small decline amid the transition to second-gen linecards for the E6000, the company’s flagship converged cable access platform (CCAP), but that was largely offset by a record quarter for Arris’s access technologies business.

RELATED: Arris ‘On Track’ to Hit Full-Year Guidance

"Dan played an instrumental role in scaling ARRIS's Global Services business into a key enabler of complex customer deployments around the world," McClelland said in a statement. "His proven track record of success, breadth of customer leadership, and strategic insights provide an excellent foundation for helping our Network and Cloud business achieve the next era of growth."

"ARRIS is at the forefront of the technologies driving tomorrow's advanced entertainment and communication services for millions of subscribers worldwide," added Whalen. "I am honored to continue collaborating closely with our global base of customers, to deliver the next generation of broadband, video and mobile services and applications."

Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) said it has secured a link to the Equinix Cloud Exchange, an interconnection platform that enables businesses to select and connect to a range of public cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace.

The agreement helps TWCBC to build on its own NaviSite cloud platform. TWC acquired NaviSite in 2011 for $230 million.  Ethernet connectivity to the Equinix Cloud Exchange is delivered via TWCBC’s network. Connections to the exchange are available from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

“TWCBC already offers secure and reliable Ethernet connectivity to our NaviSite cloud platform. With the announcement today, we can now meet connectivity requirements for customers who use other cloud service providers to meet their IT needs,” Satya Parimi, GVP, product management for TWCBC, said in a statement.

Time Warner Cable Business Services more than 700,000 business customers. TWC pulled in $836 million in business services revenues in Q3 2015, up from $724 million in the year-ago period. 

Arris took to the company blog Tuesday to announce the exec team that will lead the company following the completion of its $2.1 billion merger with U.K.-based Pace plc.

Arris confirmed that Bob Stanzione will continue as chairman and CEO of the combined company, along with executive vice president and CFO Dave Potts.

Larry Margolis has been tapped to lead the integeration of Arris and Pace as EVP of corporate and strategy and administration. Larry Robinson and Bruce McClelland, meanwhile, will remain as presidents of their respective business units (McClelland runs the company's networking and cloud unit, and Robinson heads up customer premises equipment). 

Here’s a rundown of other execs and their roles at the newly merged tech giant:

-Ron Coppock will head up a new, dedicated international sales organization and continue to lead marketing, as president of International Sales and Global Marketing.

-Tim O’Loughlin, an exec late of Pace, has been named president, North American sales.

-Jim Brennan will continue as SVP of Supply Chain and Quality; Patrick Macken as SVP, General Counsel and Secretary; and Vicki Brewster as SVP of Human Resources.

-Former Pace exec Phil Baldockwill serve as Arris’s new SVP, chief information officer.

Arris said it expects “many members of the Pace senior management team to take on leadership positions” at the new company, calling it a “testament to Pace CEO Mike Pulli’s work in creating one of the industry’s leading talent organizations and one that matches ARRIS’s culture of success.”

Arris confirmed that Pull is leaving to pursue other opportunities.

“The people of ARRIS represent the future of our company,” Stanzione said in a statement. “Today, we have the industry’s leading talent under one roof. And in the coming months, we’ll begin to leverage the full potential of our combined expertise—broadening our global footprint, tapping into new markets, catalyzing innovation, and transforming entertainment and communications for millions of people around the world.”

Following the closure of the deal, Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold maintained his “Strong Buy” rating on Arris and a $38 price target (Arris shares closed at $30.40 Monday), noting that the company assumed an additional $700 million in debt via the transaction, and issued an additional 48.2 million shares.

“Even with the lower growth outlook provided by Pace, and conservative assumptions for Pace's top-line growth in 2016, our updated model continues to reflect material accretion, and we envision combined EPS reaching $3.13 in 2016, up from $2.45 previously for stand-alone ARRIS,” Leopold wrote in research note issued Tuesday. “We also model a combined adjusted 2016 EBITDA of $1.04 billion, up from $675 million previously for stand-alone ARRIS.”

Citing data from Infonetics, Leopold noted that Arris will lead the worldwide set-top market with a 27% share, and that STBs will now make up about 60% of the combined company’s total sales. 

Cisco Systems has promoted Yvette Kanouff to a new role in which she will head up the company’s recently combined cloud groups, Multichannel News has learned. 

Cisco has not announced a new title Kanouff, but the company confirmed that she will now lead up a unit that combines Cisco’s Cloud Virtualization Group and Cloud Infrastructure Services teams. Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software and Solutions (SPVSS) business is also part of the group now led by Kanouff.

Additionally, Conrad Clemson, who joined Cisco following its acquisition of multiscreen video backoffice startup BNI Video (Clemson founded BNI Video), is now the head of Cisco SPVSS.

Cisco, which is selling its set-top unit to Technicolor, said scale is a key driver for the decision to combine these groups under Kanouff.

"Cloud is a key priority for Cisco and its customers,” a Cisco spokesperson said in a statement. “This is the right time and opportunity to bring together our cloud groups under one leader to drive scale, sharpen our focus and unify our priorities. We are combining our Cloud Virtualization Group (CVG) and Cloud Infrastructure Services (CIS) teams under Yvette Kanouff. She will lead this new organization, which will also include the SP Video Software and Solutions (SPVSS) business. Yvette will be relocating to San Jose. As part of this change, Conrad Clemson will be the new leader of SPVSS. He will not be relocating at this time."

Kanouff joined Cisco in June 2014 to head up its SPVSS unit, and has been based out of London.

Prior to that, she was executive vice president of corporate engineering and technology at Cablevision Systems, and was a longtime exec with SeaChange International. She is also late of Time Warner Cable, where she worked on The Full Service Network, a pioneering pilot program in Orlando that paved the way for cable’s shift to digital video and interactive services, including video-on-demand.

Comcast has begun to test the XG2, a new gateway for its cloud-based X1 platform that lacks a local DVR.

Comcast isn’t commenting on XG2, where it’s being tested, nor supplying any info on what specific features and capabilities that will grace it, but the device is referenced here in a customer forum that compares and contrasts devices for X1.  The section on the XG2, labeled as a “non-DVR” for X1, cites two suppliers – Samsung and Pace, the U.K.-based set-top maker that’s being acquired by Arris – and mentions that the model is “currently limited to select trial markets.”

Some customers are also posting that they have received emails from Comcast about receiving the XG2.

Speculation about the XG2 has been swirling for months as the mysterious model passed through the FCC, and a rendering of it from Cisco Systems (Technicolor is buying Cisco’s set-top unit) also appeared on the Web (see image above).

Though Comcast is keeping a lid on XG2, a person familiar with it said it’s a “headed” gateway, meaning it will have video rendering capabilities and connect directly to a TV (versus coming “headless” gateways that will route video to other set-top clients and devices on the home network). Previous FCC documents have also shown the XG2 to be a hybrid QAM/IP device equipped with a CableCARD, along with integrated WiFi, Bluetooth and ZigBee radios.

Though the XG2 doesn’t have a local DVR, an SD card that carries the “Xfinity Instant Replay” label will likely be used to buffer video so viewers can pause, rewind and fast-forward through recently-viewed TV programming. There’s also speculation that the XG2 would be a perfect candidate for Comcast’s new Cloud DVR service. The Comcast X1 feature comparison chart also points out that the XG2 will allow for the pausing and rewinding of live TV (up to 60 minutes), will support RF-based remote controls and the new X1 voice remote, as well as all the X1 apps.

The message boards are also filled with other info and speculation on the device.

One user, “ComcastAndrew” who is listed as an “official employee,” points out that the XG2 “looks close to an Xi3 but with composite and  HDMI outputs and digital audio output.” The Xi3 is a tunerless, IP-only HD client device designed to work in tandem with the XG1 HD-DVR.

While the XG2 might be considered as another companion device, it appears to be a higher-powered gateway-class unit that has its own tuners (perhaps four, according to a comment on this DSL Reports message board), with some suggesting that it could likewise be a suitable replacement for the RGN150, an IP-capable, non-DVR set-top that does not support all of X1’s features.  It’s also possible that the XG2 could work  in tandem with Xi3 clients in a multi-room set-ups for customers who do not want a DVR.

Comcast hasn’t announced how many customers on X1, but it has been accelerating the rollout – the MSO is now deploying about 30,000 X1 boxes per day, up from previous daily run-rates of between15,000 to 20,000. Nearly one-third of Comcast’s triple-play customers are now on X1.

Verizon Digital Media Services (VDMS), the video cloud unit of Verizon Communications, said it is powering LiveXLive, Loton Corp.’s new premium, live music-streaming network.

Verizon Digital Media Services said its platform is handling the ingest, delivery and distribution LiveXLive’s streaming of global music festivals, concerts and other performances in high definition. VDMS said it will also enable LiveXLive to create clips from live events and publish them to social platforms and “syndicated outlets” via a unified workflow.

Working with VDMS, LiveXLive plans to broadcast three day-long music festivals across multiple stages this fall, reaching across multiple devices including mobile, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles and connected TVs.  The plan also covers live and on-demand “virtual reality experiences,” the companies said.

“We’ve been watching Verizon Digital Media Services expand its network while adding to and enhancing its suite of services, and we’re completely blown away by the turnkey, scalable offering of their video platform,” said John Petrocelli, president of LiveXLive, in a statement.

“Verizon Digital Media Services allows LiveXLive to give music fans everywhere an immersive experience to see their favorite festivals, concerts and backstage experiences on any screen, any platform and any device in HD,” added Ralf Jacob, chief revenue officer of Verizon Digital Media Services.

In April 2014, Loton acquired a 50% interest in KOKO, a one of London’s major live music venues.  The LiveXLive advisory board includes Andy Schuon, co-founder of REVOLT and former head of programming at MTV and VH1; Jason Flom, CEO of Lava Records; Chris McGurk, former COO of MGM and CEO of Cinedigm;  and Steve Bornstein, former CEO of ESPN and the NFL Network, among others. 

Los Angeles -- Thanks to a move away from monolithic, “big iron” infrastructure to much more agile, “virtualized” systems, programmers such as Disney/ABC Television Group will soon be in position to spin up new types of channels that could be made available for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, or perhaps just around specific events.

That was one of the potential use-case examples cited here Thursday at the Multichannel News/B&C NextTV Summit during a case study about “Project Columbus,” an initiative that Disney/ABC and Imagine Communications kicked off in 2011 to virtualize the programmer’s workflow, master control and playback operations, positioning the broadcaster to support a new IP-based world that now includes streaming players, gaming consoles, tablets and smartphones and is, more generally, altering the way viewers are consuming video. 

The initiative, which is global in scope, aimed to “virtualize and get away from big iron broadcast centers that don’t have the ability to scale,” Vince Roberts (pictured above, at right), Disney/ABC Television Group’s EVP, global operations and chief technology officer, said. 

Project Columbus, which automates workflows and builds virtualized environments that live in private, hosted clouds “gives us scale, and the ability to move our markets,” he said.

The approach, which allows programmers to run and manage key functions in software on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment, is gaining momentum among several broadcasters, noted Imagine CTO Steve Reynolds (pictured above, center), as they look for ways to launch more channels at a more rapid clip, and to enter new markets and geographies. It will also put them in a better position to introduce new encoding platforms that will be used for 4K/Ultra HD.

The move to virtualized systems, he told session moderator, Broadcasting & Cable contributing editor George Winslow (pictured, far left), will enable programmers to stand up new channels on an “an ad hoc, on-demand basis.”

“We have to be in a virtual environment to take advantage of an industry on the consumer side that is changing so rapidly,” Roberts said. “I can spin up a workflow in minutes, not months.”

“This is not a science experiment,” he added, noting that the project is being rolled out to support Disney Channel and an initial eight ABC feeds later this year.

As for why the timing is right to move away from hardware-based functions, Reynolds said Moore’s Law has finally caught up with what will be demanded of these new virtualized systems. “We’re now at a place that this is finally feasible,” he said.

Roberts acknowledged that the shift also required a cultural shift and much discussion to get everyone on board with the program.

Whether you’re converting to the cloud or changing your business structure, “Everybody needs to buy in,” Roberts said, noting that it also requires “champions deep in the organization” – people he referred to as “change agents.”

“It’s not an insignificant effort,” he said.

Comcast subscribers have activated the operator's new “talking guide” on more than 650,000 X1 set-top boxes nationwide as of April 2015, Tom Wlodkowski, Comcast Cable’s VP of audience, announced Tuesday in this blog post.

Following a set of trials last summer, Comcast formally introduced the talking guide for its X1 platform last November, extending a feature that is tailored to the needs of customers who are blind or visually impaired or use English as a second language. The Voice Guidance component, which features a female voice and is driven by Comcast’s cloud-powered X1 platform, reads aloud channel names, show titles, video-on-demand settings and even DVR commands as the customer navigates the guide with the X1’s standard remote control.

Wlodkowski, who is blind, also shared some customer feedback on the feature and noted that the X1 talking guide “tracked more than 73 million utterances – the announcement of a channel, show title or menu item being read aloud” in April alone.

He shared those stats, along with some feedback from customers who use the X1 talking guide, the day after it was honored by FCC chairman Tom Wheeler in the fourth annual Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility. Comcast won in the video description category.

Comcast’s talking guide has received similar recognition from the Associated Services for the Blind, the American Association of People with Disabilities and the American Foundation for the Blind.

“While awards and recognition are great, we know we are still just scratching the surface of what’s possible in the accessibility space,” Wlodkowski said.

Arris and Charter Communications said Friday that they have wrapped up their combined $135 million acquisition of cloud video specialist ActiveVideo Networks under a joint venture.  

Arris owns 65% of the J.V. ActiveVideo will operate independently of Arris and Charter, with Arris serving as the sales channel for ActiveVideo's CloudTV platform outside of sales to Charter, which is using the technology to underpin its new cloud-based Spectrum Guide for set-tops that use IP as well as MPEG-based transport. 

Update:  Charter has been testing Spectrum Guide in Fort Worth, Texas. The MSO expects to introduce it in other markets, including Reno, Nev.; and St. Louis, “in the coming months,” Tom Rutledge, Charter’s president and CEO, said Friday (May 1) on the company’s  first quarter earnings call. “Results in the test market have been positive,” Rutledge said, noting that Charter is also working to boost the number of on-demand titles it offers on set-tops and the Charter TV app by a factor of three.

Rutledge also noted that devices outfitted with the cloud-based Spectrum Guide will also be paired with a “small resident guide” to ensure that customers can still access a user interface “if the boxes ever lose connectivity to the server.” He also said Charter is also expecting to will expand into several markets the rollout of its hybrid QAM/IP “Worldbox” (Humax and Cisco Systems are the initial suppliers of it) that supports Charter’s new downloadable security platform.

Jeff Miller will continue to lead ActiveVideo as CEO. The ActiveVideo board is comprised of both Arris and Charter execs. The deal was announced on April 14.

In addition to Charter, ActiveVideo customers include Cablevision Systems, Liberty Global, Deutsche Telekom, Time Warner Cable, J:COM, Philips, and Roku, among others.

“We expect to be able to scale [ActiveVideo’s] business and take the technology and deploy it more ubiquitously around the world,” Bruce McClelland, president of Arris’s network and cloud and global services division, said in a recent interview about the deal.

A Q&A with Gary Lauder, the managing director of Lauder Partners and former chairman of ActiveVideo, will be featured in the May 4 issue of Multichannel News. 

Synacor, a company that specializes in Web startup pages and TV Everywhere technologies, will be looking to expand its multiscreen video horizons after inking a deal to acquire the people and assets of NimbleTV.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but Synacor spokeswoman Meredith Roth said the cost is not expected to have a material impact on its business goals and financial guidance.

Founded in 2010, NimbleTV was originally focused on providing Slingbox-like remote TV access to consumers with existing pay-TV subscriptions via a centralized cloud-based platform. NimbleTV had launched its service in New York and Chicago, but recently shut down its direct-to-consumer service, the companies said (NimbleTV's service went dark on January 12, Re/code reported). In Chicago, for example, NimbleTV was providing access to a subset of live TV channels for free to area consumers who already subscribe to video services from Comcast and AT&T U-verse. Alongside that free component, NimbleTV also sold a cloud-based HD-DVR service that fetched $4.99 per month for 10 hours of storage space. In New York, NimbleTV, which had no deals or direct affiliations with MVPDs, had introduced a platform for subs of Verizon FiOS, Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable and RCN. 

Synacor said it will integrate NimbleTV’s technology into its overall video platform, and help it push ahead with the development of an authenticated, linear TV service for its clients. The company added that the acquisition will help it to accelerate video product development and client commitments and better leverage the TV rights its clients have with programmers and other content owners. Synacor said it will also gain patents that will shore up its Cloud ID offering.

Providing “[e]nd-to-end, advanced video solutions” will play an important role in Synacor’s growth strategy,said Synacor, a company that works with several MVPDs, including Verizon, Charter Communications, Suddenlink Communications, CenturyLink Communications, WideOpenWest, Armstrong, and Mediacom Communications, among others.  

On the company’s most recent earnings call, Synacor noted that it is developing a Professional Services team to deliver end-to-end advanced video solutions, and has rolled out its new PowerPlay Video Search and Discovery platform with Verizon Communications and Suddenlink Communications. The company believes that its addressable market for that new platform and services play is about $200 million this year, with the potential to grow 30% year-over-year.

Syancor's Roth said 13 NimbleTV employees, including CEO Anand Subramanian, who will report to Synacor CEO Himish Bhise, will be joining Synacor. The group joining from NimbleTV will remain at its New York City location. Synacor will consolidate its NYC offices at NimbleTV’s current spot near Penn Station. Synacor is headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y.

The acquisition is the first for Synacor under Bhise, a former AOL, Comcast and Charter Communications exec who took the helm last August.  

Bhise joined Synacor as the company was getting  pushed by two dissident investors to seek a sale. Synacor, which laid off about 20% of its workforce last fall as part of a reorg, has maintained that it will move ahead on a plan and a growth strategy that will keep the company independent.

"Synacor has an important role to play as streaming video consumers—OTT and TV Everywhere—proliferate,” Bhise said in a statement. “We see a fragmented landscape of vendors and believe our customers are looking to Synacor as a one-stop, trusted partner. NimbleTV is another step toward expanding our team and platform to deliver end-to-end, advanced video solutions. And we will continue to work with partners in the video ecosystem to assemble best-in-class technologies to deliver video solutions for our clients."

Comcast has recently enhanced some features tied to X1, its IP-capable video platform, including several that tie into how customers access and navigate sports programming. 

As explained in this blog post by Pete Nush, Comcast Cable’s executive director, product management, Comcast has redesigned X1’s Sports Guide View. Among the additions is a “Browse By Sport” row that gives viewers a look at upcoming live programming arranged by sport; an “Events On Tonight” row that shows sports programming that airs between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.; simplified access to available programing and pages related to a customer’s favorite teams; and indicators within the traditional guide search view that enable viewers to tune directly to a live game or restart it (if the sporting event is start over-eligible).

Among other enhancements, Comcast, Nush noted, has spruced up the user interface for voice control interactions via the X1 Remote app and new design of on-screen notifications that appear when voice commands are used.  Comcast has also added a feature that tells customers when their remote control battery has reached a “critically low” level and requires a swap-out.

Comcast has also enhanced X1’s “Recently Watched” feature, which shows the last nine programs a customer has viewed. The updated version is now faster and more responsive, according to Nush. 

Comcast hasn’t announced how many customers are on its cloud-focused X1 platform/interface, but revealed late last year that it has deployed more than 5 million X1 boxes.

The January 21 edition of Multichannel News will report on other features and apps that are relatively new to X1. 

Comcast used Twitter to announce that a new “Talking Guide” for its X1 platform for customers who are blind or visually impaired has gone live.

Tom Wlodkowski, Comcast’s VP of accessibility, who is blind and played a key role in the development of the feature, blogged about the launch and posted a video that shows the talking guide in action.

“Starting in a few weeks, customers will be able to hear channel names and numbers, time slots and program details read aloud,” he wrote. “Things that many people take for granted like programming your DVR or choosing what movie to rent will be easier than ever for people with a vision or reading disability.”

Customers can activate the talking guide by tapping the “A” button twice on their remote control or by turning it on via the X1 guide’s “accessibility settings” menu.

Comcast detailed the effort last month, explaining how the talking guide uses the X1’scloud-based platform to read aloud channel names, show titles, VOD settings and DVR commands.

Comcast said at the time that future versions of the X1 talking guide will add search functionality and additional personalization settings that, for example, will allow the customer to determine the rate of speech.

Comcast has deployed more than 5 million X1 boxes so far but hasn’t announced how many of its customers are on the platform.

Encoding.com, a provider of cloud-based video encoding, said it has completed a $3.5 strategic “B” round led by Harmonic.

The new infusion, which raises Encoding.com’s total funding past $8 million, will be used to help Encoding.com scale up its marketing and sales capabilities, Jeff Malkin, Encoding.com’s president, said.

He said Encoding.com and Harmonic have been working together for more than six months, noting that his company integrated ProMedia Carbon, Harmonic’s file-based transcoding system, to the Encoding.com platform in April. That move, he said, has helped Harmonic add cloud-based media processing services to its portfolio, complementing its premises-based video processing capabilities.

“We’ll also be working on new products together,” Malkin said.

He said the Harmonic partnership should also open new doors for Encoding.com, whose “sweet spot” is media and entertainment companies, counting Discovery Communications, AOL, MTV, ESPN among its customers.

While some of those customers have their own encoding farms, they also look to Encoding.com’s cloud-based, software-as-a-service video processing model to tack on capacity when faced with usage spikes.

Founded in 2008, San Francisco-based Encoding.com employs fewer than 50 people, but expects to more than double its headcount over the next year, according to Malkin. Its competitors include companies such as Telestream, Brightcove, Elemental Technologies, Imagine Communications and Envivio, which recently launched a cloud-based platform called Nuage.

“Encoding.com has pioneered and continues to lead the cloud-based, video software-as-a-service market,” Patrick Harshman, Harmonic’s CEO, said in a statement. “As the market increasingly embraces the cloud, we look forward to working closely with Encoding.com to offer our customers the most compelling solutions to meet the rapid changes within the video ecosystem.”

Denver--The cable industry must be ready to change and evolve its development models and accelerate its pace of innovation if it is to be prepared to fend off heated competition that’s coming from multiple fronts, including from Web- and cloud-focused online video rivals.

That was a key theme presented during Tuesday morning’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo opening general session, which that featured keynote presentations and a panel on how cable is evolving to a more cloud-centric, agile model of engineering and product development.

Tony Werner, Comcast Cable’s executive vice president and chief technology officer and the program chairman of this year’s show, summed it all up with this terse phrase: “Shifts happen.”

“We are at a time of great change,” said Werner, who gave some credit to Mike LaJoie, the retiring chief technology officer of Time Warner Cable, for coming up with a term to help put everything into perspective. “We are facing a new wave of competition.”

The good news, is that the cable industry “has been built on change,” Werner said. For example, he noted how channel counts have climbed from the single digits to the hundreds and that the industry is already moving toward an IP-, cloud-based service development and delivery approach.

To handle the competition and to ensure that the industry can pivot quickly, he said cable must focus on three key areas: product, improving customer service, and leveraging scale and technology.

On the product side, cable must start to sweat the details, and not rely on off-the-shelf offerings, but on products that tie in impressive industrial design and packaging. If content is king, rich navigation with content curation and recommendation engines are now “queen,” he said.

And cable can no longer lean solely on triple-play bundles, but must continue to introduce new growth-stoking services. Among examples, Xfinity Home, Comcast’s home automation and security service, “has shown promise,” Werner said, noting that almost half of those customers are new to Comcast, and about 54% now take four services.

Werner acknowledged that cable has a long way to go when it comes to maintaining customer loyalty as competition grows more heated and consumers now expect the kind of bar-raising experience delivered by companies such as Amazon, Zappos and Uber. “We haven’t lived up to the old bar,” he said.

On the scale front, he said it’s “critical” for cable to continue to leverage industry organizations such as CableLabs, CTAM, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers.

And he said the industry should embrace platforms such as the Reference Design Kit (RDK), plugging the open, pre-integrated software stack being managed by Comcast, TWC and Liberty Global.

Werner and a follow up panel took it all as step further by diving into cable’s increased use of the proverbial cloud, open architectures, and the adoption of the “agile” development model and “DevOps” — ensuring that development and operations teams are working together.

Agile development, Werner said, “takes years out of the process.”

Cloud technologies, when linked to agile and DevOps modeling, is disrupting the way the industry operates, but in a good way, executives said in a follow up panel.

At the app level, it allows operators to deploy services and try out new things at a more rapid pace. “What we need is decision-making that can keep up with the technology,” Geoff Arnold, cloud architect at Cisco Systems, said.

The cloud “is not the tool itself, but the process it enables,” Nick Barcet, vice president of products and presales for eNovance/Red Hat, added.

Shifting operations into the cloud and putting the development and operations teams on the same page “removes a lot of friction from the process,” Mark Muehl, Comcast’s senior vice president, platform technologies, said.

Rob Lloyd, president of development and sales and Cisco, amplified those points in his following cloud-focused keynote.

 “We need to pick up the pace of innovation,” Lloyd said.

One way cable can quicken its gait by continuing to put more service smarts in the cloud that can manage and optimize millions of client devices.

That doesn’t mean the client device will disappear. Devices in the home will continue to serve as the model for innovation, Lloyd said, but “home devices [are becoming] a little thinner.”

ActiveVideo believes the notion of a “virtual” set-top box is ready to take a big step toward reality.

The supplier claims it is in position to boost the scalability and reduce the requisite costs for a proposed virtual STB architecture that shifts the key processing and other primary functions of the traditional set-top into the cloud using off-the-shelf servers that are outfitted with Intel’s new Quick Sync Video technology.

ActiveVideo, whose CloudTV platform delivers interfaces, video services and interactive advertising to IP-based and QAM-locked devices, claimed that servers with Intel’s QSV technology can reduce virtual set-top box data center capex to as low as $1 per subscriber, which compares to $50 to $60 for a modern IP-only set-top, or roughly $200 for more traditional boxes.

ActiveVideo has already been running CloudTV on commodity servers that rely solely on CPU processing, but the new approach also builds in Intel QSV, which, according to the chipmaker, is built into the Intel Core processor, and uses dedicated media processing to rapidly create and covert video. That addition, when paired with ActiveVideo’s MPEG-stitching technique, enables CloudTV to simultaneously deliver the UI and transcoded video streams.

ActiveVideo said it can reach that $1 mark in part because servers with Intel QSV can deliver a 40% cost improvement on a per-session basis in part to a 400% increase in session density that allows it to support 1 million virtual STBs on one data center rack (moving from 400 sessions to 1,600 sessions per blade server). The vendor also claims that the combo offers a 10X increase in real-time video transcoding sessions to adapt premium online video to any set-top box.

ActiveVideo will show off that handiwork at the IBC show, which gets underway this week in Amsterdam. Although ActiveVideo is agnostic when it comes to servers, its IBC demo will feature CloudTV running on Kontron-made Symkloud servers with Intel QSV. Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Kontron and QuickFire are among other vendors that have integrated Intel QSV. On Tuesday, Thomson Video Networks announced that its ViBE XT1000 Xtream Transcoder is powered with Intel QSV.

“We believe that the set-top is the last node in the network,” Sachin Sathaye, ActiveVideo’s VP of strategy and product marketing, said, noting that the virtualized approach offers a massive savings over traditional set-tops that rely on local processing. “We can now deliver the power of 1 million set-top boxes in one data center rack.”

With Intel’s new tech on board, ActiveVideo said its CloudTV platform is capable of not only delivering the user interface and apps via the cloud, but its transcoding capability also enables operators to deliver their primary video services as well.

ActiveVideo envisions several potential deployment scenarios. Operators can use CloudTV to complement legacy QAM-only boxes with new services, and bring the full suite to new IP-capable devices, including HDMI sticks or directly to connected televisions.

Sathaye said ActiveVideo is in talks with customers about deploying CloudTV with Intel’s new technology, but expects its first deployments to get underway in Europe. Its announced European customers include Dutch MSO Ziggo, Deutsche Telekom, and UPC Hungary, which is using the vendor’s tech to bring YouTube and other apps to non-IP set-tops. Its U.S. customers include Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Grande Communications and Time Warner Cable. Comcast, meanwhile, has been testing ActiveVideo for a VOD interface that runs on QAM-only boxes.

Update: Murali Nemani, ActiveVideo’s chief marketing officer, said in an email that the new technology is already being deployed by two tier-1 operators, and are expected to be in production and in-service before the end of the year.