July 2022 - neuco

neuco’s Hot Companies to Watch in the Content and Media Space

Posted on July 28, 2022 by Tegan Valeny

If you are wondering which companies to keep your eye on within the Content & Media industries, then look no further!

We have taken a look at the Analytics & Measurement, Broadcasters, Content Distribution/Production/Protection, Front End, Multi-Platform, OVP & TV Platforms, System integrators and Video Processing categories and collated the exciting companies trailblazing the industry right now.

Analytics & Measurement

We have found that companies are no longer looking for new users, but putting effort into retaining the users they already have an understanding how end users are engaging with content is more important than ever.

Measuring end user engagement throughout the streaming media ecosystem is becoming front and centre for many organisations. Analytics are the cornerstone for success as video intelligence becomes a vital part of what broadcasters, OTT Platforms and Content Creators require for success.

Broadcasters

Broadcasters are constantly reformulating their work and relaunching to try and get it right. More and more broadcasters are adding OTT platforms, continuing to diversify to try and make it in the OTT world.

These household names are seeking to recreate themselves, continue to push boundaries and bring high-quality entertainment to our homes.

Content Distribution

Content would be meaningless if we couldn’t transport it!

We searched for the top companies in the Content Distribution space working hard on getting content from A to B in the most efficient, affordable and reliable way possible. Working hard, these companies are providing continuous innovations with Edge Content Delivery, promising faster and more efficient, agile and reliable delivery.

These are the companies that empower the largest media brands in the world to be successful.

Content Production

With production being more remote and flexible than ever, we’ve hunted down the top companies within the Content Production space who are proving themselves.

Covid-19 had a huge impact on many industries but gave the Content Production industry a shove out of necessity however, many companies are finding more flexible solutions integral to their continued growth.

Video Production Solutions, MAM, Graphics, Virtual Solutions, Playout tools, Video Editing and much more, are all playing their part to bring sports and entertainment experiences to life.

Take a look at the companies making strides in this area.

Content Protection

We believe your content is worthless if it is not secure.

With security being at the height of importance due to video content needing to be stored and delivered across the globe, every innovation in security is met with innovation in piracy.

These companies are proving they deserve their spot as a company to watch.

Front End

All your hard work is going to waste if your content does not have good discovery. In addition, users are not going to continue to interact with bad interfaces in this day and age!

Your users being able to find and engage with your content across multiple devices is what every streaming and VoD provider aims for.

Meet the companies working to provide the best interfaces and solutions to help your users engage with your content.

Multi Platform

Fibre and 5G are transforming our video, broadband and mobile connectivity and there are many companies thriving in this part of the ecosystem.

These are some of the most ubiquitous companies around, providing TV, internet and communication services for almost every one of us.

OVP & TV Platforms

The industry is transforming from legacy and On-Prem to cloud and SaaS models, giving opportunity for these companies to grow and develop but, SaaS and cloud-based solutions are no longer the innovation – they are the standard!

With more and more video experiences being powered by the Cloud, with FAST and SaaS here to stay, this part of the industry is dynamic and growing fast, with these companies being at the top of their game.

System integrators

With so many great solutions out there, sometimes you just need someone to bring it all together for you. Systems integrators provide you with the best-of-breed solutions to solve your problems.

More and more systems integrators and vendors can be the same people and are providing a mixture of first and third-part solutions. With such a complex technical landscape, a trusted partner that provides technical solutions and advice is key.

Powering sports streaming platforms, MPUs, Newsrooms and media centres around the globe, and enabling service providers to deliver live content to the end user, these companies are pushing this industry forward.

Video Processing

Efficient, high-quality video encoding may not be the most exciting of topics, but it is a fundamental pillar of the ecosystem.

There will always be capacity limitations, so moving video data more efficiently is often the way.

Production and distribution workflows, monetisation of content, growing audiences and putting video workflows onto the cloud, these companies are innovative and changing the way the ecosystem operates.

Do you think we have missed any out? Or are you thinking that your business should be on our list? Then get in touch!

Next Level Space Technology

Posted on July 21, 2022 by John Clifton

In episode #68 of The Tech That Connects Us, we were excited to be joined by Steve Good, CCO of Ramon Space. He started his career at Hughes Network Systems before two stints at both Intelsat and contact EF data. He’s held a variety of executive roles in his career.

He then moved to lead the strategic business development for TELUS Alenia Space before then, of course, joining him on space as their Chief Commercial Officer.

Steve’s had an illustrious career within the satellite industry spending over 25 years. So, we can quite rightly say that Steve is a true industry expert.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it.

So, where are you headed next? Where’s the next mission?

The next mission is, certainly we go further than then folks have gone before.

We’ve already got closer to the sun than folks have gone. But, at the end of the day, we need to bring that home to Earth, and what are we learning in space that we could use to better the human condition. So, what we’re really focused on is, you know, the future of space.

And, you know, another thing is we’re launching spacecraft for lifecycles of five years, seven years, 10 years, 15 or 20 years. Therefore, if you look in your crystal ball of 15 years back, which would take us to 2007, I don’t think anybody could imagine what we’re doing in 2022. And that’s, that’s the exciting part about it.

So, there’s a lot of fear, or there should be fear, with putting up a static constellation, a static satellite that’s unable to adapt to new applications, we can remove that fear as an industry.

What is left for you to learn in the future education on the horizon?

We learn something every day. So, life is a learning mechanism. But personally, I enjoy the classroom, I enjoy what a university setting provides and represents, and I enjoy being in the classroom.

And I know that puts me in a minority, but I do like learning new things and increasing my knowledge. So, a PhD, perhaps a JD, perhaps, or both? Who knows? But expanding the mind is really something that I focus on.

So, how have you approached diversity in the company?

We believe that great ideas can come from everywhere, and anywhere, and different viewpoints are essential. We actively are recruiting we’ve grown, we’ve doubled in size over the past six months.

So, I think we’re at about 60 people we read about 30, this time last year. We’re actively recruiting for a number of roles. And we believe that great ideas come from everywhere, and we need to offer additional opportunities for all.

I think that we are looking at the universities, we’re looking at different backgrounds to bring to the table. It’s an interesting dynamic here where we’re all able to voice our opinions, and we’re a startup, so we wear many hats. So bringing in new opinions, and actively pursuing folks that come from different backgrounds are very key for us.

To listen to the full episode, click here.

Every Wednesday we sit down with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.

The Current State of the Video Industry

Posted on July 14, 2022 by John Clifton

In episode #67 of The Tech That Connects Us, we were excited to be joined by Wolfgang Zeller. He has worked for some of the biggest names in European Telecommunications and broadcast from senior infrastructure roles with UPC to working as VP of service engineering for Vodafone Group.

He’s held key roles in video technology for over 20 years, and he now heads up Vodafone’s Video Centre of Excellence.

We covered so much in this episode, from the state of the industry through to how he sees video progressing and changing over the coming years.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it.

Are you excited by the current state of the industry?

Yes, of course! The ecosystem is changing, and different players are taking more important roles in the past. But, at the end of the day, we still have to deliver video to our subscribers, no matter what. You will meet different partners in the ecosystem with different roles, but it’s going to stay as it is – I’m certain.

But what do you think is the biggest lesson that the video industry can take away from this period of disruption?

I think if you look at it, everybody was very unhappy with their TV subscription model, and now, everybody is using third-party apps.

So, I think we’re going to see a cost optimization exercise driven by our customer base. I think the idea is that you go direct to the consumer as the big provider and make loads of money – But I think it comes to an end slowly. And you can see it a little bit with Netflix already.

Where do you see the biggest potential for content consumption?

Okay, so this might be a little far-fetched. But I’m really favouring if the self-driving cars – you can do a lot in them.

You’re going to read the newspaper – and now people will watch a video. Maybe, another video device, with a different type of video – augmented reality, additional information, and so on and so forth.

So, I think that’s what it is. And I break this all this down. What does it mean for us being in technology? It means “yeah, there’s going to be new devices and new types of infrastructures” – but, we need to make sure we deliver high video quality and it will have a myriad of new encoding technologies, too.

So, there’s always something that’s a potential, especially if it motivates and drives people to consume video.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge that it’s going to face the industry?

I think the challenge will be that you need to get the content to the people, and it will require a tremendous amount of bandwidth and capacity in any type of network.

So, you have always these reports showing that consumption is peaking, and those reports haven’t changed over the last five to ten years.

And, we’ll keep predicting, and people still building networks and consumers are still consuming the bandwidth and consuming a lot of video content. So, that’s going to be the challenge. And then, of course, you can be smart with encoding technologies, the way you deal with video.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Risk & Compliance in the Cyber Security Industry

Posted on July 6, 2022 by John Clifton

In episode #69 of The Tech That Connects Us, we were excited to be joined by Chris Strand, Chief Risk and Compliance officer at CyberSixGill.

With 20 years of experience, he’s a subject-matter expert in cyber risk and compliance and a regular conference speaker, most recently holding a Chief Compliance Officer role.

Earlier in his career, Chris founded and built the global compliance and risk strategy arm of carbon black, which became a fast-growing and critically important business unit.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it.

How has the relationship between risk compliance and securities changed over the past few years?

I’ve experienced the good and the bad with this – a bit of both. I would say, “they’ve” – and it’s not by choice, but they have converged. And this is where I say there’s the good and the bad. There are a lot of folks in the industry that for obvious reasons, see the Risk and Compliance angle as a negative thing.

And I understand why – they’ve grown together, out of necessity. You fast-forward to today, and there are a lot of regulations, in fact, there’s too many regulations and frameworks, it’s confusing and mind-boggling. But, it’s still a necessity.

Look at the state of the security industry right now. I mean, we’re under a barrage of threats, they’ve grown more than I could ever imagine when I started out in my career. So, you know, with that, you can observe almost a 45-degree angle of increase in the number of regulations, frameworks, and mandates; the privacy laws that we see the national and regional types of mandates around privacy and data that have grown. So, they’re all in one place, because we have a need to try to measure our effectiveness to protect that data.

And again, I don’t view it as a negative, but sometimes it is a negative because we’re under such threat, right? It’s sort of like, why do you have five locks on your door now, whereas, you know, 10 years ago, you only had one – and now we do this because there have been more break-ins, it’s the same thing. We don’t like to see the world becoming a more dangerous place.

How have you found getting back into things such as conferences?

So, I found it extremely refreshing. I think most of us are social creatures. And I actually tend to be a very introverted person. I’m uncertain if that would surprise people because I love being in front of people, but on the other hand, I am a bit of an introverted person. So, it’s sort of a weird mix. But, since I’ve been able to get out in back into the public, back face to face and speaking with people, I can never look back.

I mean, it’s the most refreshing thing I’ve ever experienced, and a very surprising feeling as well, it was a euphoric feeling at the time!

What has the ubiquity of cloud platforms and services for enterprises meant in terms of risk management?

It’s thrown a wrench into risk management for sure. Because the accessibility of the cloud alone, I mean, there are so many security themes that we can talk about such as the move to the cloud, and what’s happened over the last five, six years or so. It’s definitely created a lot of stress for risk managers that are trying to work with what they used to see as closed systems.

But one of the main themes that have become a huge thing and has helped evolve and create a lot of data privacy laws is the fact that data now is much more accessible than has ever been with the cloud.

Now, that data is way more accessible, there are so many different threat vectors to that data that we’ve never ever had before we’ve never had to deal with. So, it’s made risk managers’ lives much more difficult, because there are a million more variables that you have to consider when you’re measuring the threat to that data.

What major lessons do you feel that organisations need for this decade to better manage risk and compliance?

When I think of lessons, it’s hard for me to say what a particular lesson is because I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching to organisations, and to say, you know, you should have learned this, you should have been doing this from day one etc.

But I do think that there are a few lessons that we can look at. And one of the big things is, and this is very hard to talk about with different businesses is the transparency of their business process.

The more transparent you can be with how secure your data is, the easier it can be to find faults. But, you’re basically asking someone to talk about their weaknesses.

And businesses think “I don’t want to make it sound too weak”. Because, hey, if I’m an assessor, and I’m in an assessment with a retailer, let’s say, you know, and I’m asking them, where are all your faults and such? They’re thinking, Hmm, I don’t know if I want to tell you this. Because the minute I do, what if this gets out? What if I don’t trust this individual? Right? What if we don’t have a trusting relationship between us, and this gets out, and my brand gets damaged.

But, the lesson is to be transparent as it’s done good for many organisations.

To listen to the full episode click here.

The Current State of The Connectivity Market

Posted on July 4, 2022 by John Clifton

In another insightful episode of The Tech That Connects Us podcast, we were joined by Jillian Kaplan, Head of Global Telecom Thought Leadership at Dell Technologies, who shared her impressive career progression as a working mother and perspective on the current state of the connectivity market.

We’ve highlighted some of the key points below and you can listen to the full episode here.

How do you see the current state of the market?

The focus is very much on 5G at the moment. And as we look at 5G, we need to make sure we’re looking closely at the technologies that build 5G. So, the core, the brand, the foundation, the edge. For Dell Technologies, we have hardware that’s very focused on edge use cases and telecommunications use cases, which is extremely important.

In terms of the state of the market, the focus is on making sure that the investments that are being made can be monetized and on helping CSPs understand how this can be done. So, to his end, building truly open networks is something that’s extremely important and something we’re focused on at Dell. We partner with communication service providers instead of just selling to them, for example. All the while, recognising that going to an enterprise market is different than going to a consumer market. So, that’s the biggest shift I see; this trend towards openness and ensuring things are happening in partnerships.

What opportunities do you see in creating open networks?

When we look at vertical use cases, manufacturing is going to be huge. There are opportunities in healthcare as well, and retail. If you think about it, when you think about the jump from 4G to 5G, a lot of people thought 5G was overhyped, because the existing apps didn’t actually need 5G to run on your phone today. But there will be 5G apps built, I don’t think it is overhyped. I think it’s important for consumers to get on the 5G network so that they’re ready for when 5G apps are built.

For example, autonomous vehicles is a hot topic, even though it’s not happening tomorrow. And it’s important, as consumers, to start building an understanding about the different aspects involved, automation, for example, and question how we can learn about these developments before they roll out.

How do you think the industry will change in the coming years?

I’m confident the industry will become more diverse as things progress. One thing I’ve learned form being in the industry for so long, is that, especially in telecommunications companies, people tended to start their careers there and retire there, which isn’t the norm anymore. Although in telecommunications, it’s still not abnormal.

As these people retire, it’s going to bring a new wave of talent and we’ll start to see more certificate programmes. I’d love to see more communications and 5G and 6G and WiFi 6 certifications out there, bringing a younger generation of people into the industry. I don’t think it has the same coolness factor as cloud technologies amongst young people, but I consider it to be just as cool; we need to help people understand how awesome a career in this industry can be.

What are some of the factors that can help boost the diversity in the industry?

Certificate programmes would be amazing because people wouldn’t need to necessarily major in telecommunications. There are a lot of people who have majored in something else but are curious to now learn about the telecommunications industry.

I’m leading the Grow Talent Stream within the Diversity Council, working on getting more diverse talent interested. And one thing we did at Dell recently was, we hosted a webinar to showcase women who are working within the company who don’t have technical backgrounds, to show that you don’t need to know how to code to work in communications or even high tech. I think it’s really important for everyone to understand that you don’t need to be an engineer to work in tech and telecommunications.

Click here to listen to the full episode.