July 11, 2012

Survey Sez 07/11/12

The TV middleware market, led by Nagra and NDS globally and by Motorola and Cisco in North America, is in a massive state of upheaval as Cisco’s pending bid for NDS awaits its projected August closing and while Google still hasn’t decided what to do with its Motorola Home business unit. “Operators are reluctant to significantly change direction with the current uncertainty, except where they decide to bring middleware development in-house,” says Sam Rosen, practice director/TV & Video at ABI Research. Cablecos currently are upgrading their middleware platforms to support the migration to IP video within the home – slowly transitioning away from legacy QAM modulation, ABI points out. Meanwhile, cable, satellite and IPTV platform operators worldwide are investing in multiscreen or TV Everywhere capabilities. Says Rosen, “More online-savvy companies, especially Comcast-owned thePlatform, have been offering solutions, displacing spending from traditional middleware companies”…According to analyst firm COMMfusion LLC in association with UCStrategies, the global unified communications (UC)-capable market was worth $12.2 billion in 2011, up 8 percent from 2010. That number is expected to grow to $20.7 billion by 2016.