Live from Barcelona: Amdocs and Vubiquity help wannabe OTT providers get in the game fast

Sports broadcasters can take a hands-off approach to the tech side of content protection and distribution said Amdocs and Vubiquity, which was acquired by Amdocs last week.

Vubiquity, a provider of premium digital content services and technology solutions, is now part of Amdocs, a provider of software and services to communications and media companies. Amdocs has announced a new media division within the company following the acquisition, as it is broadening its reach into the media and entertainment business, including sports. The company is discussing the acquisition here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Vubiquity’s skill set, including licensing, processing and delivery, helps position Amdocs at the centre of the increasing convergence across the content community and video distributors, including major over the top (OTT) providers.

Darcy Antonellis, general manager of the new Amdocs media division and Vubiquity CEO, said Vubiquity works closely with sporting bodies including NFL, and also the World Cup, in many cases supporting their liner feeds and distribution, with aspects such as dynamic ad insertion for live to video on demand, standards, practises and censorship.

“Our goal is to allow content owners to concentrate on the creative aspects of what they do, and for service providers to innovate on packaging services,” Antonellis stated.

Paul Crann, CMO for North America and head of marketing at Amdocs, commented: “We’re seeing all of our customers addressing the video content issue. It’s hard to do the scale needed for OTT though; companies are struggling to see how they can go to market with an OTT strategy.”

However, the acquisition of Vubiquity brings Amdocs a wealth of content, as Vubiquity is an aggregator of premium content, pulling rights together for all the Hollywood studios, independent film studios, and many more. Amdocs’ telco customer base now has the ability to tap that pool of content, montisie it through any business model the carrier wants to offer to subscribers, and use Amdocs’ investment in technology to deliver it OTT on a global basis.

Crann added: “We’re excited about bringing these two technologies together. This is now a holistic video solution. Everyone wants a more personalised experience; they want to source content worldwide, which creates very large asset libraries, available any time and anywhere I want it. We have the scale with Amdocs and Vubiquity to get into the game. For any operator that wants to get into this area of OTT, mobile or otherwise, they can now get in very quickly, taking the time to market with all the financial risk that implies away.”

Antonellis concluded: “We’re going to migrate away from video on demand to video experiences. Mobile has made sports and sports consumption just explode.”