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[March 17, 2004] N2 Broadband And ICTV Enable Delivery Of On-Demand Services For Major Healthcare Organization ICTV, creator of HeadendWare, a centralized platform for the delivery of interactive television services, and N2 Broadband, a provider of scalable, open-standard solutions for on-demand services, announced that their joint solution has been selected by Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN to enable the delivery of VOD and SVOD menuing, games, patient e-mail, patient education, video programming, and weather and travel information.Mayo Clinic selected an integrated platform consisting of HeadendWare and N2's OpenStream platform. When the joint solution is deployed, up to 2,500 Mayo Clinic patients and staff would have access to the system using standard remotes and keyboards. The integrated HeadendWare/OpenStream solution should enable any web developer to build and manage VOD and SVOD menuing applications and to easily port interactive applications from the web to digital TV systems. This deployment represents the first implementation of the web services specification jointly authored by ICTV and N2 Broadband. "Mayo Clinic wanted to deliver new interactive services to their patients and staff without costly rebuilds of its existing system," said Mike McGrail, president and CEO of ICTV. "The selection of our joint solution should enable the Mayo Clinic to create VOD and SVOD interfaces that are tailored to the specific requirements of the hospital environment. Providing Mayo with web tools to achieve this is consistent with N2 and ICTV's vision of on demand services and navigation." "We want to enable the creation and delivery of on-demand content and applications," said Reggie Bradford, president and CEO, N2 Broadband. "By creating an open environment that enables the use of standard web tools by the software industry's talented pool of developers, we're able to help companies like Mayo build applications that would be cost-prohibitive on any other interactive television platform. Working with Mayo Clinic is an example of how OpenStream can easily expand to support new types of customers and services," Bradford added. N2 Broadband's OpenStream is the industry's only complete, open on-demand platform that enables cable operators and content providers to quickly and affordably offer on-demand services, such as VOD. OpenStream is part of N2 Broadband's growing suite of products that span content creation and management through back-office service management and operations support services. It enables cable operators to easily deliver on-demand services using VOD servers, billing systems, IPGs and other system components of their choice. With OpenStream, operators can also choose from any current or future iTV application such as advanced menuing, merchandising or indexing of on-demand content. OpenStream provides operators with one point of contact for installation, integration and customer support. The OpenStream platform is a highly scalable system that supports cable operators of all sizes - from small, growing cable systems to large systems with substantial transaction volumes. The OpenStream platform is deployed today with a real-time, two-way billing interface and comes with a feature-rich, open reporting infrastructure so operators can more effectively manage, view and control their on-demand network. OpenStream supports digital networks from both Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta and is the only solution of its type with a 24/7 Network Operations Center, which currently supports more than 1400 VOD devices. The HeadendWare software platform enables interactive, revenue-generating programming to be accessed by any digital set-top. Operating in real time on a two-way cable network, HeadendWare allows TV-friendly interactivity in ways no satellite provider can. The platform enables a rich array of services including VOD merchandising, interactive multimedia games, and managed content services. HeadendWare application servers can be distributed across the operator's optical fiber backbone network. This modular approach enables an operator to support as many as 500,000 digital subscribers from a single headend rack. The platform offers optional back office server applications, including plug-and-play customer data gathering tools for tracking and production of personalized service offerings. Service providers alternatively can choose to integrate HeadendWare with other vendors' standards-based billing, provisioning, and management systems. |