Netflix has shifted to IBM storage systems to manage its growing data volumes, opting for an appliance based on IBM’s XIV architecture, itself based on Fiber Channel and iSCS. It is using it to manage databases and back-up operations. According to IBM, Netflix replaced 16 existing storage systems with just three XIV systems and reduced data center footprint by 80%. Netflix has up until now relied upon Amazon Web Services.
While we tried hard to take Ericsson’s top ten trends seriously, as soon as it began to talk about “thought” controlled devices by 2020, we began to laugh out loud. This lined up alongside predictions like in 2015 more streamed content will be watched than broadcast content. We openly invite Ericsson to ask us to test its assumptions here – even though the content eco-system is undergoing extreme disruption, there is just the small matter of billions of people only being able to get broadcast streams, and the entire pay TV operation globally, the slow take up of TV Everywhere and Nielsen’s recent numbers, all which collectively ridicule this patent nonsense. It puts the entire Ericsson labs thing into a very poor light – if we don’t believe this stuff, why should we believe it is even clever enough to count smartphones?
Norway’s national broadcaster NRK has signed with local company Arkena for CDN services to carry its catch up streaming service. Last year Arkena said that NRK streamed 120 petabytes of data to its audience, and this year it will rise to 200 petabytes, with a new streaming platform tightly integrated into the CDN. The Arkena CDN system is based on technology from French broadcast infrastructure group TDF.
The Wall Street Journal has been tipped off that Apple will make between 5 million and 6 million Apple Watch units during Q1, ahead of the launch in April, roughly 50/50 the cheaper sports model and the standard watch. It also said that Apple had changed its mind about having the Watch support blood pressure, heart activity and stress level monitoring, partly due to complexity, bill of materials and regulatory issues. We’ve got that all to come in future products.
Panasonic is showing a 4K projector at a show in Europe this week, the PT-RQ13K is billed as the world’s lightest and most compact projector of its kind. It employs Quad Pixel Drive technology to deliver extremely detailed, film-like, 4K image quality. Remember when every cell phone was going to have a projector built inside it and screens were never going to be needed? Well that never happened, largely thanks to Apple’s intervention with touch screen technology and the difficulty in keeping projector power down.
Indian DTH player Videocom has pulled its IPO at the last minute most likely due to the investment it took directly from US investor Silver Eagle Acquisition Corp, which put in $303.7 million for 33.5% stake in January.
Craig Moffett is one of the savviest tech investor analysts in the US, which you can confirm by viewing Seeking Alpha transcripts and exploring his intelligent questions. On the back of his research, his company MoffettNathanson has downgraded Comcast and cable generally, citing regulatory issues. Certainly if Title II is passed for ISPs, then Comcast, along with the entire cable sector, will be more heavily regulated. And if not, then Comcast will have to observe increased regulation based on merger remedies as it eats Time Warner Cable. We might balance this against the WiFi advantage Comcast has in the US. Moffett says cable has been good for investors, but it’s time to look elsewhere. Moffett also wants to know how cable will deal with cord cutting. The Comcast price barely moved, but the direction was downwards.
ABI Research says in a report out this week that worldwide pay TV grew 5% in 2014, and went past 924.4 million subscribers, with IPTV leading the market at 14% growth, followed by satellite TV platform at 7%. Most other estimates put pay TV at around 800 million homes with revenues actually falling, although we don’t have our own global model to check it against, so take your pick.
Nintendo is canceling plans to launch its TVii service, a video store for the Wii Deluxe, in Europe. It was launched in the US in 2012 and was supposed to come to Europe the following year. Nintendo puts it down to the complexity and price of rights across multiple territories. Instead it will launch the Nintendo Anime Channel, a new VoD service, for the DS.
Qualcomm says it will extend the Snapdragon brand to its modems and has added four new Snapdragon processors including the 620 and 618, which use the 64-bit ARM Cortex A-72 CPUs with a new X8 LTE modem onboard offering LTE Cat 7 connectivity. Also it has added a 425 and 415 with octa-core CPUs, with the 425 also having the X8 onboard. Qualcomm has always preferred to offer modem and CPU on the same chip, but departed from this about 5 or 6 years ago when rival applications processors threatened to leave it behind unless it changed tack. Now it seems to be ahead of the pack once again, and this should drive down BOM on smartphones quite dramatically.
Swedish TV software and operating system producer Zenterio has partnered with XroadMedia, a recommendation specialist and the two will integrate the Ncanto personalization service into the Zenterio set top OS.
In a similar way to companies like Germany’s Abox42 and SoftAtHome in France, they are trying to bring as much capability to bear for operators so that they mandate their software environment, instead of selecting a single proprietary set top. As such they are like RDK, except outside of the cable arena and reach right down into the operating system.
Arris has come up with spectacular Q4 and 2014 full year results, with revenue up almost 50% on the year to $5.3 billion from $3.6 billion a year earlier; a record operating margin and net income recovering to $327 million. Q4 revenues were $1,26 billion and net income $192 million, but much of that was a tax benefit. The underlying story here is that while Motorola Home was in the hands of Google, US cablecos deferred orders, even though still loyal or tied into Motorola. Since Arris has taken it over, the trust was come back and it is returning to pre-Google revenue levels. It also says its order backlog is $631.0 million
Comcast says that users of its Xfinity TV Go app can now get 70 TV channels out of home (it was initially 31), 21,000 VoD choices on smartphones and 466,000 online, and says that 30% of Xfinity TV customers are using it regularly, viewing on average 7 hours a month, up 40% on last year. The app has been downloaded 11 million times.
Kudelski Group annual figures have just come in with revenues up at 895 million Swiss Francs ($946 million), up 7.1% over last year. Net income was $53 million, compared to $41.6 million last time. The Conax acquisition is now integrated, and Kudelski in January signed a patent cross license agreement with Cisco, with net payments to Kudelski and has added further patent licenses with Vevo and Netflix, the latter allowing for pre-integration of Nagra anyCAST with Netflix service. The company already has new deployments with Cable & Wireless Panama, TBC in Taiwan and VTV Cab in Vietnam in 2015 and it said Conax signed 22 new contracts signed in 2014. Management forecast 2015 revenues just under 2014 numbers with similar margins.