Category: Software

MUMBAI: Australia pay-TV company, Foxtel, has got the go-ahead from Australia Competition and Consumer Commission to acquire Australian telecommunications company Austar.

The ACCC decided not to oppose the merger between the two companies after the competition concerns arising out of the merger were satisfied. However, the final decision on merger hinges on the Federal Court order on 13 April.

“Foxtel’s proposed acquisition of Austar has recently been approved by the ACCC. This is an exciting time because bringing the two businesses together is likely to bring a number of benefits for all Australians. Subject to the approval by the Federal Court on 13th April, we anticipate that Foxtel will take ownership of Austar in late May. Until that time, it is business as usual for us. You can just sit back and relax and continue to enjoy your Austar service,” ,” the company said in a statement.

The merger was approved after Foxtel accepted court-enforceable undertakings which will prevent it from acquiring exclusive IPTV rights for a range of attractive television programme and movie content, including:

Linear channels supplied by independent content suppliers, including more than 60 linear channels that are currently broadcast by Foxtel and many more that are broadcast internationally;

Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) rights to current or past seasons of television programs that form part of a linear channel supplied by an independent content supplier;

Movie linear channels (or movies for inclusion in a linear channel) from more than 50 per cent of the eight major movie studios or more than 50% of the eight specified independent movie studios;

SVOD rights to movies, except for an 18 month window in relation to the movie studios from which FoxTel is not prohibited from acquiring exclusive linear rights.

“The proposed acquisition would bring together the two main subscription TV industry players in Australia each with a substantial customer base and significant access to key content. This would in turn give Telstra, FOXTEL‘s largest shareholder, greater market power in regional fixed broadband and telephony markets,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.

“By reducing content exclusivity, the undertakings will lower barriers to entry and promote new and effective competition in metropolitan and regional telecommunications and subscription television markets. Taking into account the undertaking which has been offered by FoxTel, the ACCC is satisfied that the proposed acquisition is unlikely to substantially lessen competition,” Sims said.

However, rival telecommunications company Optus has warned that the merger will have huge ramification as it will limit IPTV competition.

MUMBAI: AOL Inc. has consented to sell more than 800 patents and related products to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) for $1.056 billion as it looks to raise fresh cash for its investors while fighting a boardroom showdown with an activist shareholder.

Shares of AOL surged as much as 45 per cent yesterday hitting their highest point in nearly one and a half years as the company pledged to return a “significant portion” of the sale proceeds to shareholders.

Seeming to address a criticism from activist investor, Starboard Value, the company didn‘t announce how it will distribute the money but said it will share the proceeds.

Under the agreement that was announced, AOL also received a license to the patents being sold to Microsoft. Assuming that the deal materialised at the end of 2011, AOL said that it would have had about $15 a share in cash.

However, the company didn‘t detail the patents sold, although its chief executive Tim Armstrong recently referred to them as “beachfront property in East Hampton.”

In general, the value of patents can fluctuate and be arbitrary, and others weren‘t as confident in AOL‘s particular portfolio. The patent-advisory firm M-Cam Inc. had valued AOL‘s holdings at $290 million.

Starboard, which owns around 5.2 per cent in AOL and is mounting a proxy campaign to win seats on AOL‘s board, had said AOL‘s portfolio of more than 800 patents covering Internet technologies could generate more than $1 billion in licensing income “if appropriately harvested.”

MUMBAI: In its largest ever acquisition, Facebook has snapped up Instagram, a 2-year-old photo-sharing application developer, for a whoping $1 billion in cash and stock ahead of its public float.

By acquiring Instagram, Facebook may also have sought to absorb a potential rival or at least prevent it from falling into the hands of a major competitor like Twitter or Google Inc. The Instagram application, which allows users to add filters and effects to pictures taken on their iPhone and Android devices and to share those photos with their friends, has gained about 30 million users since it launched in January 2011.

The acquisition marks an exception in strategy for Facebook, which has traditionally bought small companies as a means of hiring coveted teams of engineers. Facebook generally discontinues the acquired company‘s products or builds similar versions that it integrates into its service.

Instagram has said that by the end of 2011, its users had uploaded some 400 million photos or about 60 pix per second. Instagram launched its Android app just last week, garnering more than one million downloads already.

Instagram is backed by a number of web industry bigwigs including Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Benchmark partner Matt Cohler led a $7 million funding round in Instagram in 2011 and serves on Instagram‘s board.

It is likely that Facebook will acquire Instagram‘s entire team.

MUMBAI: Holland-based broadcast technology and solutions company Exset is seeing digitalisation as the perfect opportunity to enter into the Indian market.

The company, with offices in UK, Estonia and New Delhi, provides software and security solutions to the television industry focusing in emerging markets.

The company is looking at partnering with cable operators in India to set up a Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) venture that will provide digitally compressed programming via satellite, reported PTI.

“Nationally, we are looking at HITS. We may partner one multi-system operator (MSO)…We are very open to partnering an MSO who has a strong national and regional footprint,” Exset MD and CEO Alex Borland was quoted by PTI.

Borland clarified that discussions are in early days and declined to give any details.

Exset will also help cable operators offer subsidised set-top boxes to consumers.

“We will partner with operators and help them offer set top boxes to the end consumers. We have partners for set top boxes…We can also help operators give customers applications like games and educational content as well as local content like classifieds through their platform, which will open up new channels of revenue for them,” Exset Global head of sales and marketing Rahul Nehra said.

The Indian government has set up 31 December 2014 as the sunset date for the complete switchover from analogue to digital cable.

MUMBAI: Star Movies has launched ‘You Pick the Flick‘, an initiative that gives viewers the freedom to choose their favourite Hollywood blockbuster movies once every month from four movies.

Viewers can log on to the Star Movies Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/StarMoviesIndia, and choose the movie they want to watch on a Sunday night.

Star Movies kick starts the property on 15 April. This month the four blockbuster movies to choose from are ‘Black Swan‘, ‘The Nutty Professor‘, ‘Snatch‘ and ‘Bad Boys‘.

Star India GM, senior VP, English channels Saurabh Yagnik said, “Our viewers are natives of the digital world and we have constantly seen them seeking movies of their choice on the Star Movies fan page when they engage with us on social media. This inspired us to launch the property ‘You Pick the Flick‘, where our viewers will get the freedom to choose the Hollywood blockbuster that will air on their favourite channel. We are confident that this property will provide a unique and engaging experience for our viewers and the 600,000 fans on social media.”

MUMBAI: The Information Affairs Authority’s (IAA) Bahrain Radio & Television division (BTV) has selected Masstech, the provider of streamlined media asset management solutions, to digitise and preserve all its content for optimal workflow efficiency.

The first of a kind project for the Kingdom of Bahrain will involve building a comprehensive digital archive for 55 years of BTV’s broadcast content.

Bahrain TV is currently upgrading all six of its channels to HD and Masstech’s Topaz archive will perform the material handling to Harmonic’s Omneon playout servers under the control of Pebble Beach automation for precise HD file based workflows.

Topaz’s inline high speed transcoding (HQS) technology will enable interoperability for bridging workflows between BTV’s content creation platforms – these include Avid Interplay, Apple FCP and Adobe Premier.

IAA director of technical affairs Shaima Al Hamid said, “We chose Masstech because they have more built-in versatility to provide us with a complete solution for digital archiving, ingest, QC and metadata management. The Topaz system will enhance production giving our staff instant access to archived video footage with the ability to search and view low resolution proxies at their desktop. It is very important for us to preserve and protect our media assets as we invest in more channels and generate more content.”

Masstech’s Topaz+XT, the all-in-one HSM, CSM, HQS and media asset management (MAM) system, facilitates metadata entries in Arabic and English to improve programme planning, coordination, reduce costs, and enable more streamlined operations.

At BTV’s facility in Manama, the installation will comprise IBM servers, a DCS3700 150TB nearline cache, a Spectra multi-frame T950 LTO-5 library, Pulsar-2 QC, 15 XT-Ingest appliances and Masstech’s patented DRAC redundancy – all integrated and managed by Topaz.

Masstech VP sales and marketing Brad Redwood added, “We are thrilled to be part of Bahrain TV’s transformation – accelerating the migration from videotape to digital archiving. In our 10th anniversary as a MAM leader, we are excited to welcome BTV to Masstech’s global family of installations. For over a decade, we have been delivering MAM solutions to leading broadcasters who value our highly skilled support services and capitalize on the full benefits of streamlined asset management. Topaz’s scalable open platform with interfaces to new media and business systems will support the Kingdom’s ambitious expansion plans for years to come.”

MUMBAI: Videocon d2h has agreed to carry the high definition (HD) feed of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The DTH operator has inked a deal with MSM Discovery to broadcast the IPL on Max, the official broadcaster of the popular T20 league, in HD. MSM Discovery is the exclusive distribution partner of Max, a channel from the MSM stable.

Max HD (LCN number 924) will be available free of cost to Videcon d2h‘s HD Platinum HD subscribers. The HD feed of Max will also be available to customers who are either on Platinum HD, Sports HD or HD Globe add on.

The standard definition feed of Max is available to customers on all packages and is being provided free to all the customers in the south region.

Indiantelevision.com had reported first that MSM Discovery has signed up Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV and multi system operator Hathway Cable & Datacom for airing of the fifth edition of IPL in HD format.

Videocon d2h director Saurabh Dhoot said, “Viewing preferences are very important for us and we ensure every effort to provide more content for customers suiting their needs. We now offer 13 HD channels (including Max HD); we provide the highest number of sports channels too across all DTH platforms. We look forward to consolidate our leadership position in high definition category.”

Videocon d2h is already title sponsor of Kings XI Punjab.

Said Videocon d2h CEO Anil Khera, “The presence of Max HD on our HD platform will definitely give us an edge over other DTH players. This addition makes us the only provider with a wide range of HD channels across various genres. We are sure that with Kings XI Punjab and Max HD both with Videocon d2h shows our commitment to our customers in providing entertainment. We believe that this IPL will help in augmenting our resources and concentrating on leveraging our association, thus establishing supremacy in High Definition segment.”

Also Read:

MSM Discovery expands IPL HD feed on DTH, cable

MUMBAI: Around 57 Majority of Indian Internet users (57 per cent) prefer to check bank account and other financial holdings online, reveals a recent research carried out by global research firm Ipsos.

Accessing information on the net on products and services that people are thinking of buying comes second at 53 per cent while half 50 per cent shop for products online and more than four in ten (42 per cent) have surfed to look for jobs in the last three months.

Ipsos India head of marketing communication Biswarup Banerjee said, “Online banking has made things much easier for the people and it saves a lot of time. It has eliminated the hassle of traditional way of banking where one had to stand in the queue and fill up several forms.”

“Most of the banks in India have introduced customer friendly online banking facility with advance security features to protect its customers against cybercrime. The easy registration process for net banking has improved customers access to several banking products, increased customer loyalty, facilitated money transfer to any banks across India and has helped banks to attract new customers,” he added.

Banking and keeping track of finances, shopping and searching for jobs are the main tasks of Internet users around the globe. Nearly 60 per cent of people in 24 countries used the web to check their bank account and other financial assets in the past 90 days, making it the most popular use of the Internet.

Also, according to the Ipsos poll globally 41 per cent people went online in search of a job.

Around 48 per cent people used Internet in past three months ‘to buy products or services online‘. For the same, 50 per cent Indians used Internet while Germany and Great Britain have the highest percentage (74 percent each) of people buying products and services online.

“It is telling that the top four countries are all traditionally developed western countries,” said Banerjee. “It‘s really been under 10 years that this technology has been around.”
Almost 61 per cent people have searched the web for information about products they are thinking about buying. Online shopping was the least popular in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Hungary and Russia, where 28 per cent or fewer people buy online.

Polls were the most likely to log on to look for a job, with 61 per cent searching online for work, followed by Hungarians, South Africans and Mexicans. But only 17 per cent of Japanese and a quarter of South Koreans and French have chosen the web for their job search.

Banerjee noted that the findings shadow very closely the number of people who said they knew someone who has lost or is looking for a job. “For almost all of them (countries) it mirrors who has the most job anxiety,” he added.

The poll revealed that older people, between 50-64 years of age, with higher incomes and education were the most likely to do their banking online, online shoppers were also better educated and bigger earners. But about half of online job searchers were under 35 years old, unmarried and had smaller incomes.

Ipsos interviewed 19,216 adults in India, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.

NEW DELHI: India will become the second largest mobile broadband market globally within the next four years with 367 million connections by 2016.

A GSMA study says in doing so, India will overtake the US, which will account for 337 million mobile broadband connections by 2016, but will still be second to China, which will have reached 639 million connections in the same period.
Since 3G licenses were first awarded to mobile operators in India in September 2010, mobile broadband connectivity has grown steadily. There are now more than 10 million HSPA connections across the country, and this is expected to grow exponentially, by 900 per cent, to more than 100 million connections in 2014. This will make India the largest HSPA market worldwide within the next two years, surpassing China, Japan and the US in the process.

“The mobile industry in India is set for immense growth as mobile broadband technologies such as HSPA and LTE start to proliferate, but there is scope for far greater development,” said GSMA director general Anne Bouverot. “To take full advantage of this, the Indian government should facilitate the timely release of additional spectrum in a fair and transparent way for all stakeholders. The benefits are clear to see – a 10 per cent increase in mobile broadband penetration could contribute as much as $80 billion (Rs 3,506 billion) of revenue across the country’s transport, healthcare and education sectors by 2015.”

According to a recent study by GSMA‘s Wireless Intelligence service, mobile growth in India is being largely driven by more affluent communities in cities despite a large rural population. Net additions in urban areas reached 85 million last year compared to 57 million in rural areas, with mobile penetration increasing by 20 percentage points in urban areas to 161 per cent, against a 6.5 percentage point rise in rural areas to 36.6 per cent.

The provision of mobile broadband in rural and remote areas will help India bridge the so-called “digital divide”. It will improve productivity, help overcome the constraints of transport infrastructure and provide much needed services such as banking, health and education. Given the significant social and economic benefits, expanding affordable access to mobile broadband should be a high priority of the Indian government.

According to Wireless Intelligence, with an average retail price of $500, the cost of an LTE Smartphone is four times the average monthly GDP per capita in India, and at an average of $200, the retail price of an LTE USB dongle is twice an Indian’s monthly income on average. As LTE networks proliferate worldwide and more devices become available, costs will come down.

Initiatives like the introduction of the low cost Aakash tablet in India are helping spur widespread access to the Internet in emerging markets, but more can be done.

“It is important that all citizens in India have access to high-speed Internet connectivity and the transformative opportunities it provides,” Bouverot added. “The current average cost of an LTE device is prohibitive for the uptake of mobile broadband for those on low incomes. The GSMA is committed to working with its mobile operator members to investigate innovative ways in which to make access to the mobile Internet more affordable for all.”

The GSMA also announced it has opened a permanent office in New Delhi and recently made two new hires: Sandeep Karanwal, head of GSMA‘s India office, and Nitin Sapra, the GSMA’s manager for spectrum and regulation policy in India. Bouverot continued, “It is an exciting time to launch our new office, as India is an increasingly critical market for the mobile industry, both commercially and in policy terms, through its influence throughout Asia Pacific and the world.”

The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide. Spanning more than 220 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organisations. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as the Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia Expo.

MUMBAI: Measat Satellite Systems has entered into an agreement with Encompass Digital Media for the distribution of the Edge Sport HD channel via the Measat-3 satellite.

Edge Sport is the first 24-hour premium action sports channel launched for the Asian market by IMG Media, part of IMG Worldwide aimed at the active and athletic urban young adults, featuring key sports disciplines such as surfing, snowboarding, BMX, mountain biking, skateboarding, supercross, skiing, base jumping, freestyle motocross and wakeboarding.

The channel features films, documentaries, athletic profiles and biographies, lifestyle programming and magazine shows, all in High Definition.

“Measat is pleased to be working with Encompass to bring Edge Sport in high definition to audiences across Asia. This high-octane sports channel is an exciting addition to the line-up of high quality HD sports channels on Measat,” said Measat senior director, sales and marketing Jarod Lopez.

The Measat-3/3a satellites at 91.5°E supports Measat‘s HD video neighbourhood consisting of a wide range of high quality HD channels including news, general entertainment, sports and factual programming. The slot will be further enhanced with the planned launch of Measat-3b satellite in 2014.

“With the addition of Edge Sport HD, Measat now has 26 HD channels on its video neighbourhood, leading the HD channels distribution in Asia,” added Lopez.