We know, we didn’t blog from IBC day 2 to the end but we have some good reasons. One, we were without an Internet connection. Yup, a technology show without an Internet connection, it wasn’t until the last day that we found the Wifi zone which looked more like a set from the base camp of the Star Wars film that was set on the ice planet Hoth. And, to top it all off, we lost our memory card in our camera and so we are without photos. (must have been the coffee)
Well – this is what we heard and felt about IBC — lots of folks at IBC – yipee! But nothing new – everyone saying the same thing – folks doing one thing, now making a “platform” to do everything and advertising to get coverage has definately taken a front seat – so all you see is big names with their big stories and their big broad messages. Nothing really innovative at all – well I take that back.. there were a few companies that are doing some “disruptive” things with IPTV technology.
TVBlob for one — I met these folks by accident cause well you know – they aren’t huge and they don’t pay for all that great “coverage” but they are doing some cool innovative things in a space now traditionally dominated by “who’s got what deployment”. They have a TV-centric platform that brings the Web to TV – so IBC finally gets a little closer (and hipper) to Internet TV technology. Plus they are Italian and you know how we feel about them.
Second on our list is Inuk – we dig this company – broadcast quality video over CLOSED networks – just the opposite of all the junk everyone else is saying – and why not? I mean the whole world is not about commercial deployments, plus they work with Industria and Accedo Broadband (to name a few) and those companies are plotting their own course successfully.
Edgeware TV out of Sweden – preaching their flash-based video server technology message and stirring the pot – why can’t there be more than one way to stream and store content?
Accedo Broadband – Swedish again (man that country can churn out some good technology) this time on the content side – offering up out of the box applications straight to the home and letting the operator take all the credit – sweet.
This one is a client – but you know we had to jump in on this bandwagon because we think that application of IPTV technology to other sectors – healthcare, schools, police forces, etc is actually a very good use of the technology and no one is screaming about the subscriber base. Dreampark – (yes Swedish again and managed by a team of incredibly smart men that give credit to the gender with three founders who always have their sleeves rolled up). Dreampark – a middleware provider that is actually in most of the COMMERICAL (a.k.a revenue generating) IPTV deployments – has taken IPTV and applied to healthcare via its Nurse Gudrun project that actually connects doctors, patients and other healthcare providers together via IPTV. I mean how amazing a use is that? To actually be able to connect to your doctor via IPTV – Useful!
Last on our “innovative” and “disruptive” list is Icareus. This is a Finnish company who really is blowing the socks off the industry – quietly. They focus on the easily dismissed “service layer” of iTV. They are all about content and as we all know from reading, content is king. Any chance you get to meet and talk to them – you should.
So this year we think that even though the show was bigger – that you really needed to look for the innovation and past all the rhetoric (and that includes the IBC show daily)
Till next year….
