[itvt] ITV Interview: Sam Pemberton, CEO, the Softel Group

Sam Pemberton was recently named CEO of the Softel Group, a company probably best known to [itvt] readers for its interactive TV carousel playout system, MediaSphere TX, and for its MediaSphere Alliance Program (members include ADB, Digisoft, emuse, Ensequence, Osmosys, Two Way TV and Vidiom). Pemberton has worked at Softel for around a decade, and in 2001 founded its US subsidiary, Softel-USA, subsequently serving as its president and CEO.

He recently spoke to [itvt]'s Tracy Swedlow about his long-term plans for the Softel Group (whose other member-companies are Softel Ltd. and Aston Broadcast), about MediaSphere's various deployments (which include a deployment with the UK's Independent Television Network that sees it playing out around 3,000 interactive TV applications a month), about Softel's support for interactive TV standards, about the company's work in the IPTV space, about the differences between the US and UK interactive TV "cultures," and more.

[itvt]: Could you give us a little background on the Softel Group? How did the company, which has been around for over two decades now, move into the realm of interactive TV?

Pemberton: The Softel Group actually started out of Softel Ltd., which was set up back in 1983. One of the founders of the company was George Berry, who was a world-renowned expert on Teletext systems. And, as I'm sure you'll agree, Teletext was one of the very first--or at least one of the most impressive and early--examples of interactive television that we've seen. I'm not sure how familiar your US readers are with Teletext, but it's an information service that has been successfully deployed all over the world, both by commercial and by public broadcasters. And it has served viewers as a real source of useful content, and has also been successfully used by advertisers to reach viewers. In many ways, it was a forerunner to the Internet. It's something that many of us from Europe grew up with: because I grew up in England, I automatically know that page 302 of the BBC's Teletext system, Ceefax, will give me my football information--it's something that's almost ingrained in me!

So, anyway, Softel was founded as a Teletext company, and grew to become one of the leading Teletext companies worldwide. The company also started to do subtitling systems--or closed captioning systems as they're called in the US--because the two fields were closely related: subtitling was always delivered through Teletext. A little while later, Softel bought out the Aston company, who are the leader for high-end character generation and broadcast graphics equipment throughout the EMEA and APAC regions, and formed Aston Broadcast as part of the Softel Group. Then, in 2001, Softel-USA was formed.

[itvt]: Now you formed Softel-USA yourself, correct?

Pemberton: Yes, I formed Softel-USA. Here's how that came about: as part of my MBA, which I was finishing up at the time, I had to come up with a business plan, and the business plan was essentially Softel-USA. I was flying in and out of the States a lot, doing sales activities for Softel, and it was quite clear that there was a need for us to set up a company dedicated to that region--so to the Americas. So that's basically how Softel-USA came about.

You see, the US--and the market for the Americas--is very unique. And the cultural differences between Europe, on the one hand, and the States and Canada in particular, on the other, in terms of technology are sometimes very great--and tend to be underestimated. So we wanted to set up shop, and ensure we had staff dedicated to the region.

And that's exactly what we did. We're now working with almost every major US network. We knew that, if we were going to be serious about deploying a solution dedicated to the region and to how things are done in the region, we'd have to be here--not least in order to hand-hold once the system was deployed. We couldn't just sell and forget. Relationships are massively important to us: we pride ourselves on delivering very compelling solutions and on working in partnership with our customers to ensure their profitability and their success--and then hopefully they'll come back to us for more. That's precisely how we've grown.

[itvt]: Was Softel-USA founded as an interactive TV company or was its focus on another area?

Pemberton: The business plan was always to go to market as an "ancillary data" company. That market was ripe, and we believed our technologies were class-leading, and--positioned right--could do well. This proved to be the case, and we are now the leading ancillary data company in North America, with installations at the vast majority of networks, who use us to automatically playout crucial content such as v-chip parental controls, closed captions, channel ID's, and so on. Per the plan, we kept our ITV systems under wraps, watching the market maturing and finally began releasing products to that sector in 2003.

[itvt]: Which segments of the interactive TV market does Softel-USA target?

Pemberton: We generally talk about four different use cases for our products. There's interactive content developers, like emuse, Ensequence, Two Way TV, YooMedia, Vidiom, and so on. There's test laboratories for testing set-top boxes, televisions and other equipment. There's operators--so cable operators, telcos, and satellite providers. And then there's the networks. We've got products targeted at all those four areas.

[itvt]: Now that you have been named CEO, what are your long-term plans for the Softel Group?

Pemberton: Well, I've already begun an extensive restructuring program so that each of our companies is best aligned to provide for the rapidly evolving needs of the "Television 2.0" marketplace. Another focus is to increase the whole Group's partnership programs, and also to really bring together the three companies that make up the Group. At the moment, we work somewhat independently, and yet there's a lot of overlap and a lot of very cool things that each company is doing that the other companies in the Group could take advantage of. You will also likely see more mention of the Softel Group going forward, not just of the three individual companies.

[itvt]: How do the three companies overlap?

Pemberton: Both Softel and Softel-USA market versions of the MediaSphere carousel product, but to slightly different markets. Aston's character generators have long been used by Softel for broadcast projects. And Softel provides the integration and the engineering expertise to tie in with automation system providers, content management systems, and so on. So there's a lot of overlap there, especially because the companies are all working with many of the same partners: Harmonic, Harris, Motorola, Omnibus, Probel, Sony, Tandberg, and so on.

[itvt]: Could you talk about what is arguably your flagship platform (at least from an interactive TV perspective), the MediaSphere TX carousel?

Pemberton: I guess our overall message is that we're the delivery and playout experts, regardless of the platform. We look at interactive TV as somewhat of a triple-win--we really do look at it from three different perspectives. There's the operator perspective--they need to make revenue out of this new medium, or at least need to minimize churn. There's the content-provider perspective--they need to further ingrain their brands into the viewer (which is something that's crucially important in the TV 2.0 world), and, of course, they're also aware that ITV can provide great revenue streams for them. And then there's the perspective of the viewer--the whole idea is to use interactivity to make a better TV experience for the viewer. That's basically how we look at interactivity.

So what we do is we offer highly robust, flexible solutions for multiplatform, multi-middleware playout. And to this end, we launched the next generation of the MediaSphere playout system during 2006. It's now capable of playing out to cable, satellite, IPTV and digital terrestrial, and even--through our partners--to mobile devices. We also support multiple TV middlewares, like OCAP, ETV/EBIF, ACAP, MHP and OpenTV. And, in fact, we can play out to all those different platforms all from the same unit. Obviously, we offer n+1 fault tolerance and redundancy, and so on. But what is crucial--particularly for content providers like the broadcast networks--is to be able to output to everyone. They want a playout solution that is ubiquitous--and that's what MediaSphere provides.

Also, the operators are always pleased to hear that MediaSphere can handle set-top box updates, and other infrastructure management issues.

[itvt]: For our less technically involved readers, could you explain in short what exactly a carousel playout system does?

Pemberton: A carousel is used to play out data (usually interactive applications and their associated content) to the viewer very efficiently. Carousels can, in fact, be used to deliver any type of data, but because they make for an extremely robust delivery mechanism (and are such a neat "wrapper"), they are often used to deliver ITV applications and content, such as i-ads, guides, play-along games, etc.

How the data gets to the viewer depends on the platform. But technically, the carousel takes a virtual folder structure, then cyclically (hence the term carousel) plays that out using broadcast techniques (i.e. one-to-many). The virtual "folder" is then propagated to exist at the other end of the broadcast, usually at the set-top box.

Carousels can ensure data is exactly time-synched, either by time of day, or by triggers (we recommend using our MediaSphere Trigger product, of course!). And because a single MediaSphere carousel can propagate every set-top--potentially hundreds of millions--in a very small amount of time (under a second), it is an extremely efficient way of playing out set-top box updates, interactive applications, and content. As I've mentioned, carousels are a true "broadcast" technology, so there are never any delays no matter the viewership. The updates, applications and content can reach the set-top equally quickly whether one person is interacting, or hundreds of millions.

That's pretty much a layman's overview of carouseling!

[itvt]: Could you give us some examples of current projects where MediaSphere is being used--especially projects that see it playing out to multiple platforms at the same time?

Pemberton: Sure. We're doing that for a whole range of different partners and customers. Though first I should perhaps stress that we don't actually produce the interactive content ourselves. We leave that to the experts, like emuse, Ensequence, SysMedia, Two Way TV, YooMedia, Vidiom, and so forth--all of which, by the way, partner with us for playout. So we "simply" pull their applications and play them out, and this is often achieved based on automation control (that is, MediaSphere TX's playout is automatically controlled by the network's or operator's broadcast automation system).

Many of the examples I have are from the UK, as they're arguably the most impressive. For example, we worked with Ensequence on their interactive TV project for QVC in the UK, which plays out both on the Sky satellite platform and on digital terrestrial--or Freeview as it's branded. And we've also worked with them on interactive TV projects for Viacom properties, such as MTV and Nickelodeon, ensuring that their applications were played out both to digital terrestrial and to the Sky platform. We've also worked with YooMedia on the playout of a variety of interactive applications for UKTV and the other BBC-Flextech channels. We've partnered with emuse on the playout of interactive TV applications for Five and S4C in England and Wales. Probably one of our most impressive recent projects has been with the UK's Independent Television Network (they're the top commercial broadcaster in the UK): they've actually got 15 microregions, based on Sky and Freeview (we're also talking to them about how their interactive TV services are going to work on IPTV), and we're playing out a staggering 3,000 interactive applications for them every single month, including interactive advertisements, play-along quiz shows,  games, and a whole variety of other enhanced output. And all that is being done in a completely automated environment. On these projects for the Independent Television Network, we've primarily been working with emuse. So there's a whole list of recent projects in the UK.

We have also been involved with a large number of broadcasters in mainland Europe, including NOS in Holland--NOS is Holland's state broadcaster--where we've installed a multiplatform playout system. Through our partner, e-office (who are best known for their LexionAir product), we are also playing out interactivity to PDA's and other mobile devices. The subscription service has proven impressively popular.

We've also got some very exciting projects with Two Way TV in Spain and Italy. Those projects are with what we call "iOps" or "interactive operators." iOps are companies that are set up to produce interactive services and supply them to operators. So they're not necessarily video producers, and their interactive services aren't necessarily bound to a channel or network. iOps use MediaSphere to play out things like virtual horseracing--which again isn't bound to a channel but which is nonetheless very popular.

There is also a lot going on here in the States. For example, I think one of the most impressive uses of interactivity I've seen is the interactive application that Dave Preisman and his team developed at Showtime for the EchoStar/DISH satellite TV platform. It reaches roughly 11 million viewers, and gets hundreds of thousands of responses. And those responses have meant fewer calls to call centers, and more viewers and revenue for Showtime. It has been a massively successful application. What they managed to do very well was to pull together what the platform could do--i.e. the EchoStar/OpenTV platform--with the production capabilities of Showtime.

[itvt]: You also have the ability through your MediaSphere Push tool to distribute content via the Web, correct?

Pemberton: Yes. MediaSphere Push is a distribution platform: it ensures that applications and their related content are distributed throughout the country to the various playout hubs. To be honest, we're not really--if you'll excuse the pun--pushing MediaSphere Push at the moment. We're not marketing it in earnest. We've actually got a lot of technologies that are waiting in the wings, as it were. Based on our strategy of offering best of breed via our partnership program, we actually prefer to use the tools offered by Digisoft, emuse and Ensequence. In other words, wherever possible, if we've got good partners who can do something, we'll work with them to create a great solution.

[itvt]: My understanding is that you are working with the cable industry on the OCAP and ETV/EBIF standards…

Pemberton: Yes. You probably saw the press release we put out last year with TVWorks, in which we stated that we'd agreed to work in partnership on both OCAP and ETV--though the partnership will, at least at first, primarily be for ETV. They're using our MediaSphere Lab solution to develop their environment, including their user-agents. Also, Time Warner Cable's Advanced Technology Group is using our MediaSphere carousel to help create their ODN application: a key goal there is to pre-integrate our technologies so that every Time Warner Cable region can roll out MediaSphere seamlessly, as they wish. It's great to say we're ready to roll with those guys on deployments. Again, they've developed their own user-agents--the user-agent being something that gets deployed to the set-top box in order to allow it to receive OCAP or ETV/EBIF applications.

I should also mention that we've now licensed our technologies to four of the top six MSO's.

[itvt]: You mentioned MediaSphere Lab. Could you give us an overview of that product?

Pemberton: It's designed to mimic a full playout facility. So--and I hate the phrase, because it's over-used--it's basically a headend in a box, a headend simulation system. So rather than just emulate, we can recreate what the viewer's going to see, using a real set-top box and a real television; and that allows us to do focus groups and tests, in order to ensure that the deployed solution is right. We've also got automated test systems, of course.

[itvt]: You mentioned that you're working with Time Warner Cable's Advanced Technology Group. Does that entail you working with Vidiom?

Pemberton: We're working with Vidiom on a whole host of things. They're a great company. We're actually looking at whether we can share some space with them in Denver. At this stage, though, I should be careful of talking too much about ongoing or future deployments.

[itvt]: Where do you think the most potential for growth is for Softel--cable, satellite, IPTV or what?

Pemberton: I think it's a combination of all of the above. In fact, one potentially interesting growth area that people often overlook is digital terrestrial in the US: as you might know, Jonathan Dakss of NBC is doing a great job heading up the ATSC's efforts in the ACAP world--ACAP is…you could think of it as the digital terrestrial version of OCAP. But the crucial point is that ACAP applications are supported within the OCAP specification. This means that networks can now create an application for digital terrestrial playout, and also play it out--or supply it for playout by--the MSO's. This is a very important stepping stone to generating more, and increasingly compelling interactive content.

So, through the ATSC, we've been working with NBC, as well as with Ensequence and OpenTV, on an ACAP-based interactive TV version of "Deal or No Deal." We're also working with PBS--through SysMedia, which, as I mentioned, is another one of our partners--on an ACAP application for "News Hour." There's actually a lot of interest in ACAP from the networks.

We've been doing a lot of consulting to the networks about how they can get into one-screen interactivity, and I think what's clear to us is that what will allow this market to grow is when support for interactivity is fairly ubiquitous on multiple platforms. Unfortunately, the fact is that OCAP, even today, isn't anywhere near as widely deployed as most people expected--although frankly at Softel-USA we've never really thought it was going to be here yesterday. This has allowed us to have what I think is a very progressive plan: we were in stealth mode until just a couple of years ago, building our technologies out and getting ready for the market, and we're still to some extent doing that.

However, I do think OCAP is definitely a growth area, and the fact that the FCC has mandated a July, 2007 deadline for the implementation of separable security--which means that the operators will have to support retail set-top boxes--has really lit a bit of a fire under the OCAP world. Another thing that I think will help speed the deployment of OCAP is that the cable MSO's are very interested in the ability to streamline the deployment of their EPG's. At the moment, some of the operators have literally hundreds of different set-top box platforms out in the field, and what OCAP will do is allow the operators to write the EPG once, and then deploy it through MediaSphere.

I also think that the ETV/EBIF standard will be a growth area for our company. We've been working with the operators and with CableLabs on the development of ETV/EBIF, which is something that we're definitely keen to push forward. We've actually had a visiting engineer at CableLabs since the summer of 2004. And we've been intimately involved within CableLabs in the writing of the specs for ETV and OCAP. This, of course, has allowed us to ensure that our platforms are really honed to those standards. In fact, we were the sole provider of enhanced ETV/EBIF streams at the recent CableLabs interop, and we played out and proved our solution with advertising solutions companies like BigBand, C-COR and Terayon. I felt that the interop event was pretty symbolic for all of us in the industry, in that ETV is real, is deployable, and is very simple to get to market.

[itvt]: Now ETV/EBIF is generally viewed as a stop-gap technology. Do you think it will have longer legs than people anticipate?

Pemberton: I think it definitely will have a relatively short life--we're talking a few years to maybe, at tops, 10 or so. As you know, what it is is a bridge between where we are today--i.e. a cable environment with loads of disparate platforms--and where we need to be--which is a cable environment that has one ubiquitous platform, OCAP. Until OCAP is rolled out, there needs to be a bridge, and so that's why we've been so involved in ETV/EBIF. From talking to our cable MSO customers, our impression is that many consider ETV/EBIF to be important in the scheme of things.

[itvt]: How long do you think it will be before we see significant ETV/EBIF deployments?

Pemberton: Actually we proved to MSO's, in closed-room lab settings, that this is deployable as far back as 2005. Of course, that was in a lab setting, and we've been gradually making things more and more real, to the point that we're now getting very close to having something that may be deployed. When the MSO's will actually get it out remains to be seen, but I do think it's ready to go.

It's like with a lot of things: the technology is available and ready; it's now a case of the business side being available and ready. That's why, earlier on, I was stressing that interactive TV has to be a triple win--for operators, content producers and viewers. I think, in the States, the industry has partially lost the focus on that. We've either been focused on technology or on business, and not necessarily on both.

But the one thing that will focus the mind of any operator is competition. And the cable operators can now see that satellite is already there. The interactivity that's being played out, day in and day out, by EchoStar is enormously impressive. And DirecTV have shown several times that they can come up with great interactive services that are popular with the viewer. And, as I mentioned earlier, the networks are also starting to push for interactive TV. That, of course, is crucial--because you can have a great platform, but without the content, it's useless. And, conversely, you can have the content without the platform, and that again is useless. So the platform and the content have to work together in order to make a great viewer experience, and that's how revenues can be generated, churn reduced, and so on. That's where we're really focused at the moment in our consultancy to networks and operators: we're talking about the bigger picture, and I think that's something that all of us need to focus on.

[itvt]: What's the bigger picture for the telcos? Are you working with them as well?

Pemberton: Absolutely. We've been involved with the telcos for quite some time. And, although unfortunately I can't talk about specific projects (in part because we are keen to protect our relationships in this burgeoning area), we are actually working with several of the world's biggest telcos, including here in the US. One of the things we're solving is this: a major problem with IPTV is having to have an individual session between the headend and the viewer for each portion of interactivity. Now, when I say "interactivity," I'm not just talking about interactive applications or enhanced TV: as I've mentioned, one of the things we deliver is updates or upgrades to the set-top boxes. So if we need to update thousands, or tens of thousands, or even millions of set-top boxes, it's very tedious indeed to have individual sessions between each set-top and a server. The overhead is enormous: it just doesn't scale. So how we can solve this is by using broadcast technologies tailored for the IPTV ecosystem: what MediaSphere can do is propagate the set-top boxes with the updates and upgrades in one fell swoop, without having to have a single session. And that's enormously beneficial, as I'm sure you can imagine…

Just to clarify: a session is a direct connection between the set-top box and the headend; it needs to be fed by the server, and each server can generally only service about 150 to 350 sessions, depending on the deployed platform. A session is basically a two-way communication between the headend and the set-top box, and it's got an overhead in terms of the data being sent back and forth. So, instead of doing all that constant handshaking, we propagate the updates and upgrades, in one go, through broadcast technologies over the IPTV plant.

Of course, there are things that need a one-to-one session: anything that involves true two-way interactivity, like checking my bill, for example, requires a one-to-one session--but only for the personalized micro data, not necessarily for the app and shared content. We can put out updates--as well as applications that will just run based on time of air and on triggers--without having to have one-to-one sessions.

[itvt]: You mentioned that you're working with some big telcos. Are we going to see the results of that work anytime soon?

Pemberton: We anticipate having some very big announcements going out in the next few months. Not just in the telco world, but in the cable world too. There are several major cable and telco projects that we're working on. With that said, these are surprisingly protective markets…

[itvt]: What would you say are the main differences between the interactive TV "cultures" in the US and the UK?

Pemberton: I think one of the biggest differences has been that state broadcasters--the public broadcasters--here aren't as powerful as they are in Europe. Think, for example, of the position occupied by the BBC in the UK. This has led to a number of different issues--one of them being the lack of an institution that can provide people with education about interactive TV. In the UK, the BBC took it upon themselves to educate the nation about how the red button would work: basically telling people to pick up the remote, press red, and discover that it's a pleasant experience that will enhance your television viewing. We just haven't had that here. No broadcaster has stood up and said, "Right, we're going to educate the country about interactive TV." In a sense, why should they?

[itvt]: I have to stick up for PBS a little: they were making an effort to educate people about digital television in the late 90's, but the funding…

Pemberton: Oh, definitely. I'm not in any way having a pop at PBS. They do a tremendous job and I'm sure that one of my sons is watching "Barney" at this very minute! But I definitely think that the BBC's ability to educate the market was a crucial factor in the growth of interactive TV in the UK. And, of course, the BBC's power to impact the market extends beyond their ability to educate consumers: the BBC has the ability to do interactive TV end-to-end--they have the production capability, the broadcast facilities, and the ability to deliver to digital terrestrial, Sky and other platforms. So they were really able to drive the market forward in a number of ways--which hasn't really happened here in the US.

However, things here are starting to change, I think. And there are now some really impressive examples of interactive TV coming out of the States. There's the Showtime-EchoStar project I mentioned earlier, which I thought was really quite groundbreaking. Another one was the interactive ad for the Mercedes-Benz M-Class that was created by Turner Media Group--which has since rebranded as TMG. We didn't play that out, but it was a great project and we're looking at opportunities to work with those guys.

I think more partnerships need to be developed in this industry: we're always looking to build partnerships, and if everyone did the same, I think it would take the market forward in leaps and bounds. I think that's already starting to happen. And, as I just mentioned, I think that evangelism and education are really important: not just evangelizing to viewers, but evangelizing to people in the industry as well. We shouldn't forget that cable has a huge amount of power in this country, and therefore how important it is to educate that industry. The cable MSO's have been concentrating on a whole range of different things: they've been looking to provide Internet access, they've been looking to provide phone service, they've been looking to provide VOD, and now they're working on mobile services as well. So now several of those things are up and running, and so interactive television, OCAP and all that goes with it is starting to rise to the top of their agendas. Also, the fact that satellite is already deploying interactive applications, and that the telcos are so well set up to offer massively interactive experiences is going to help interactive TV in the US.

[itvt]: You were just talking about partnerships. Could you tell us a little about your MediaSphere Alliance Program?

Pemberton: We originally set up the MediaSphere Alliance Program to just pull us together as an industry--to ensure that, throughout the value chain, we could check all the boxes that were relevant in the marketplace. So we went to the set-top box manufacturers, we went to the production companies--in fact, we went right through the industry--and identified the leading vendors in all the industry's main categories. We wanted to pre-integrate with them, and pre-test our offerings together, in order to ensure that if, say, Vidiom's software is being used at MTV and MTV wants to use MediaSphere to play out, then that's not going to be an issue. We've got actual deployments happening--even though we can't talk about many of them in the States right now--and that's what this partnership program is all about: ensuring that these deployments go smoothly.

[itvt]: You mentioned earlier that Softel-USA wasn't established as an interactive TV company…

Pemberton: Yes. Our interactive TV division wasn't actually established until 2003. As I mentioned earlier. our ancillary data division, which was set up when the company was founded back in 2001, is responsible for the playout of parental controls, such as the v-chip, and also of all the closed captioning pretty much throughout the States. This is obviously a very substantial market, especially given the FCC mandates.

And I think it's important for people to realize that we have existing relationships with a whole host of networks for the playout of ancillary data, and that we can leverage--and are leveraging--those relationships for interactive TV, as well. That's something that we're actively pursuing at the moment, and we're in talks with a great number of networks.

As well as the playout side, we've also got all the creation tools for closed captioning, for subtitling, and v-chip as well, by the way. A huge number of the studios, and post production houses use our equipment: so much so that if you were to pop into Blockbuster, you'd be hard pressed to find a DVD which had not been authored with ancillary data produced using Softel equipment. In other words, our ancillary data division has grown rapidly and is now very well-established.

[itvt]: What announcements should we expect to hear from Softel-USA over the coming months?

Pemberton: We have several announcements in the works, including new partnerships, new clients, trials and deployments. As you know, we've been keeping our cards pretty close to our chest in certain areas, sometimes for competitive reasons, other times as a result of our clients' preference. Gradually, and as the market matures, I hope that this will be able to change.

Crucially, though, you will continue to see the whole Group growing, and although we have not put out a formal press release regarding the following as yet, I've got three extra snippets to share with you:

I am delighted to say that Ed Humphrey is now Softel-USA's president. Ed brings a wealth of experience to the post, from companies such as Rational, IBM, and Samsung, as well as several successful start-ups. He is also an MIT grad, but most of all, Ed is a fantastic guy and is one of the smartest people I know--a rare combination. He's been with us for several years, and has consistently proven his metal in a number of crucial roles--most recently as vice president of our products groups. Ed will continue to work out of our New York-area office.

I am also pleased to boast two other impressive additions to our worldwide team. Firstly, Trevor Morecraft has joined and is in charge of the Group's worldwide sales efforts--and again the company benefits from his wealth of experience, including senior management roles with Lightworks and Quartz. Trevor also holds a technical Emmy plaque. Finally, Ron Wiles has joined our expanded Denver (Broomfield) office as senior director of ITV sales and marketing, and has already taken significant steps to ensuring our continued growth. Ron's experience made him an ideal candidate for the job: he was most recently with Time Warner Cable.

I'm pleased to say that 2007 promises to be another very exciting year for the Softel Group!

URL: Softel-USA

Originally Published: January 18, 2006  in [itvt] Issue 7.14

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