middleware

Kudelski-owned interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, on Wednesday announced a partnership with Coverity, a provider of "software integrity" solutions, that it says will complement its middleware testing environment.

Canadian digital TV software provider, Espial, last week announced the latest release of its Evo TV Service Platform IPTV middleware. According to the company, the new release offers:

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV (note: Kudelski is currently finalizing the process of acquiring full control of the company--see the article published on itvt.com, November 16th), said Monday that Australian pay-TV operator, Foxtel, which is a longtime OpenTV customer, has launched its next-generation platform in collaboration with the company.

The Kudelski Group announced Friday that it has successfully completed its tender offer to acquire the Class A shares of interactive TV middleware and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, that it does not already own for $1.55. According to the company, when its tender offer expired on November 12th, OpenTV shareholders had tendered approximately 56,382,588 shares (including 8,277,113 shares subject to guaranteed delivery procedures), representing approximately 60% of the Class A shares not already owned by Kudelski. "Upon the acquisition of those shares validly tendered and not withdrawn," Kudelski says, it will own approximately 91% of the voting rights in OpenTV.

Israeli IPTV middleware and applications provider, Orca Interactive, said Tuesday that it has signed a deal with CTV International, a new US-based service provider that is launching an over-the-top service which it says will provide "ethnic" content (including TV programs and Web video) to ex-patriot communities around the world via a PC or set-top box. According to Orca, the service--which will initially provide Hebrew-language programming targeted at Israeli ex-patriots and travelers--will be one of the first live deployments in which an IPTV middleware has "crossed the lines" to support a fully OTT service.

The Kudelski Group on Monday published a document in which it enumerates various "severe challenges ahead for OpenTV" as a standalone company, should Kudelski's tender offer to acquire all the company's outstanding Class A shares for $1.55 per share in cash not succeed.

A number of companies have contacted [itvt] over the past few days to let us know about their exhibit plans for the TelcoTV show, which takes place in Orlando, Florida this week (November 10th-12th):

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, on Wednesday announced the launch of a beta tester program for its new software development kit (SDK), the OpenTV SDK Development Suite C2.2. According to the company, the program will provide developers with early access to the new SDK starting this month, and enable them to create interactive TV apps "using all the latest functionality of an OpenTV-enabled set-top box." The new SDK will then be released to the public at no cost next March, the company says.

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, has released its third-quarter financial results:

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue (as well as some stories from last week's SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver, which our editorial team was unable to attend):

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, said Monday that it has extended its relationship with BSkyB, which has been one of its key customers since the launch of its digital satellite TV service back in 1998. According to the company, Sky has licensed its patents and other intellectual property rights to support ongoing development of its digital TV platform, and the companies will now work on a proof of concept which--if successful--could lead to the deployment of Core3, the next generation of OpenTV's flagship middleware platform, on Sky's set-top boxes.

The Kudelski Group said Monday that its wholly owned subsidiary, Kudelski Interactive Cayman, Ltd., has commenced a tender offer to acquire all outstanding Class A shares of interactive TV middleware and applications provider, OpenTV, not already owned by Kudelski, for $1.55 per share in cash (note: Kudelski is OpenTV's largest shareholder: it has an approximately 32.3% stake in the company that gives it approximately 77.2% voting control). The bid values OpenTV at approximately $215 million.

Interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, said last week that it has partnered with Indian cable operator, DEN, whose digital cable service is based on its MediaHighway middleware platform, to launch two new interactive TV services: a microblogging application, called Blog.telly, which was just launched, and a 24/7 music service which launched in January.

The International MHEG Promotion Alliance (IMPALA), an organization that was set up in 2006 by Strategy & Technology, Cabot Communications and EchoStar Europe to promote use of the MHEG-5 standard outside the UK (note: MHEG-5 is the middleware standard upon which the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial service, Freeview, is based; it was developed and standardized in the mid-90's as part of the DAVIC standardization effort to support interactivity and navigation for VOD services), announced Monday that the latest version of its open standard interactive TV middleware has now been submitted to ETSI for approval.

Dutch chip company, NXP Semiconductors, said last week that it has integrated NDS's MediaHighway set-top box software onto its CX2450x system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution for HD set-top boxes. The company says that the integration will reduce time-to-market and integration costs for set-top box operators and OEM's to bring new, interactive TV-enabled pay-TV services to end-users.