the transition of certain channels to virtualized playout via public and private cloud is very much on our agenda. It was fantastic being able to take journalists and customers to DMC (Digital Media Center) in Amsterdam to see our Orca virtualized playout systems in use during IBC. DMC is quite a groundbreaking project for us. They’re on the air today, expanding as we speak. What’s great for us is that we are getting expert use case knowledge embedded into the product as it develops. As we near the end of this next phase, we’ll have a great reference to take to the larger market where we can point to a real project running on air.
Migration and Evolution
Many broadcasters are sitting on legacy automation systems that have effectively been discontinued. They often arrive on our tradeshow booth with plans for a radical switch to a completely new environment, but haven’t thought fully about how they’re going to get there. Their systems are at best still working, but no longer evolving. At worst, they are unsupported, with parts becoming increasing difficult to source. Pebble’s evolutionary approach towards getting organizations into newer technologies means they don’t have to abandon everything they’re currently using and jump into a completely experimental world. We provide the reassurance that they can continue to work the way they do while giving them the flexibility to migrate over time, as they perceive less and less risk in doing so, onto fully integrated and virtualized platforms. This resonates extremely well with customers who otherwise perceive such an upgrade with apprehension. We’ll connect into their existing workflows and allow them to continue to use devices that still have a useable life, and we isolate their operational staff from the underlying engineering decisions about what technology would seem to be appropriate for any particular type of channel. It’s a strategy that’s been extremely successful for our company.
Partnerships and Collaboration
There’s much discussion about how open companies are, and how willing they are to work with other organizations in delivering the right solution for the customer. From my conversations, I think the trend is clearly moving towards closer partnerships between specialist companies. Sure,
sales people would love to sell an entire “end-to-end” solution, and customers love to have one throat to choke, but it’s increasingly clear that one company can’t do it all, and if it can, it’s probably making significant compromises along the way.
We intend to continue growing through our partnerships with others, such as our partnership with Harmonic and Pixel Power. The Harmonic partnership has worked very well for us, particularly in the USA. Harmonic had a number of different choices for whom to partner with when it came to automation, and it was a huge compliment and endorsement for us. With complex tasks such as automation, the market relies on companies like Pebble Beach Systems and our expertise to do a really specialist job. Automation is complicated and necessary, as are graphics, captions and subtitling, for example. People who see media as just another way to sell bandwidth may be taking over the broadcast
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