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Tag: SaaS solutions

  • Mike Cronk takes the helm at Paul Shen’s TVU Networks as VP of strategy

    Mike Cronk takes the helm at Paul Shen’s TVU Networks as VP of strategy

    MUMBAI: In the intricate chessboard of business, strategy is the ultimate checkmate—a decisive edge that separates winners from the rest.

    Whether orchestrating a sports victory, acing exams, or redefining industries, strategy holds the key. And when it comes to the fast-evolving world of media technology, TVU Networks has just made its masterstroke.

    The global pioneer in cloud and IP-based live video solutions has announced the appointment of Mike Cronk as its new vice president of strategy.

    Known as a visionary with over two decades of media innovation expertise, Cronk is set to drive TVU’s mission to redefine content creation and distribution for media organisations worldwide. With a reputation for crafting winning strategies, his entry promises an exciting era of growth, innovation, and bold moves for TVU Networks.

    Cronk brings a wealth of experience from roles such as AWS, head of product for live media services; Core Technologies VP at Grass Valley, and IP Media Solutions (AIMS) founding chairman of the alliance. At TVU Networks, he will focus on scaling its award-winning cloud-based services and driving transformative changes in broadcasting workflows.

    TVU Networks CEO, Shen underscored the importance of this appointment, “Mike Cronk joins TVU at a time of unparalleled innovation and momentum for our company. His deep expertise in cloud transformation, media workflows, and product strategy will enable us to continue redefining how broadcasters engage their audiences. With Mike’s leadership, we will further strengthen our position as the trusted partner for media supply chain transformation worldwide, turning our customers’ most ambitious projects into reality.”

    Reflecting on his new role, Cronk expressed his excitement for the future, “TVU has been at the forefront of live video production for nearly two decades, forging strong partnerships with media organisations worldwide. This year alone, TVU has enabled groundbreaking cloud-based workflows, from leveraging AI-assisted production during major sports events to powering fully cloud-based workflows for this year’s biggest elections. The opportunity to contribute to such a visionary company at this pivotal moment is truly exciting. Together with our customers, we have the potential to achieve even greater milestones and transform the industry further.”

    Since pioneering cloud-based and AI-driven broadcasting workflows in 2018, TVU Networks has developed a modular ecosystem that meets complex production demands with speed and agility. Its latest innovation, TVU MediaHub, has already earned six industry awards and powered high-profile events such as the Games in Paris and recent elections.

    “Mike’s vision and expertise align perfectly with TVU Networks’ mission to transform the broadcast industry,” added Shen. “His addition to our leadership team marks an exciting chapter for TVU as we continue to innovate and collaborate with our clients to redefine what’s possible in live media production.”

  • GUEST COLUMN: Why Software as a Service puts video service providers in control

    GUEST COLUMN: Why Software as a Service puts video service providers in control

    How can we increase market share? Can we meet the demands of consumers who want to watch high-quality video on any screen, anywhere, anytime? What should we do to protect our content, and build new revenue streams?

    These are some of the critical questions video service providers are continually asking themselves and us. And the Software as a Service (SaaS) model is proving it has what it takes to address these burning issues by allowing providers to quickly launch, scale and update streaming services and keep focusing on the right questions to stay competitive.

    Scaling ambition

    SaaS puts customers firmly in the driving seat. Flexible, affordable, and scalable – with the onus on the software provider to host and maintain the service – it means providers can start small and pay as their ambitions scale, whilst reaping the benefits of new product enhancements, features and functionality added as frequently as multiple times a day.

    Some early adopters are already turning their backs on inflexible, bespoke technology deployments and instead embracing SaaS solutions. Interestingly, we are finding these are not just those born-in-the cloud streaming services that might first spring to mind but also more traditional pay-TV providers and telcos.

    One particular factor driving SaaS demand is the increased appetite for TV advertising. Where once the focus was on subscriber acquisition and market share, broadcasters and other service providers are now demanding the flexibility to create new Avod and Fast services that help counter the cost of content. For example, a leading provider in southeast asia is deploying Synamedia Iris, our SaaS addressable advertising solution, to manage, deliver and measure advertising consistently across its entire subscriber base including set-top boxes with one-way connectivity. Synamedia Iris is a key area of focus at our R&D centre in Bengaluru along with the development of our other SaaS solutions, including Synamedia Go.

    Increasing modularity

    Until now, service providers have had little alternative to customised, complex deployments involving heavy Software Design Kits and pre-defined, sequential phases of testing with no overlap between phases. It sometimes takes many months for acceptance testing to support the launch of a single feature or a new device. In today’s rapidly evolving business and technology environment, that’s simply unsustainable.

    By contrast, the SaaS model offers flexibility, agility and Opex models that come with public cloud, service-based delivery and DevOps. With a modular suite of solutions, providers can start small, only paying for what they need, then easily add more packs or services as their needs evolve.

    And SaaS isn’t just for the big players. Its effects are disruptive because the entry barrier to these new levels of experimentation and creativity has been lowered and its modular nature opens up opportunities for smaller and non-conventional businesses.

    Our SaaS transformation

    At Synamedia, we are living and breathing multi-tenant SaaS internally and witnessing its power first-hand. As one example, in just the first six weeks of 2022 we made 130 discreet feature drops into production in our Synamedia Iris addressable advertising solution. In the previous generation software-based solution, we had releases every six months and our customers typically added two or three months of testing on top of that.

    In a rapidly changing world, this velocity and agility is game changing for us and more importantly for our customers. It has impacted every department in our company including the way we sell, support, and contract with customers. Where once our platform deployments were bespoke for each customer, with the SaaS model any customisation now only needs to happen at the edges.

    The result is our pace of change of product delivery has increased an order of magnitude over the last year. Importantly, we have also evolved our development approach to one that considers the complete customer experience. We are now more focused and efficient when releasing new features and everything is delivered with built-in market validation.

    Keeping pace with change

    Our industry is a late adopter of SaaS and one of the main reasons is that it requires changes not just within the vendor community but also within the user community. Put simply, users cannot realize the benefits of SaaS without changing their operating model to accommodate a high velocity and multi-tenanted approach, most notably acceptance testing.

    Those that don’t change will be outmanoeuvred by more agile competitors, maybe not in the short run, but inevitably over time. Those that adopt SaaS will give their subscribers a better service and will benefit from a much lower cost of ownership.

    Importantly, the product won’t just be better from a user experience and feature functionality perspective: releasing software in small batches that can be easily verified and backed out as necessary dramatically increases quality as well.

    And, finally, well-designed cloud-based APIs support a new level of openness that gives users the option of integrating point solutions or procuring suites of solutions from their preferred software suppliers. This openness is something that Synamedia has embraced strongly for its own solutions.

    Delivery the SaaS way has shifted Synamedia’s cultural mindset, and our internal teams have had to reorganise to support different priorities and responsibilities. In this golden age of content, where consumers want to change what and how they watch in the blink of an eye, it’s time for video service providers to buckle-up, rev-up the SaaS engine and make sure they’re not lagging behind.

    The author is Paul Segre, CEO, Synamedia