itaas Teams with Comcast on New Program to Accelerate EBIF Deployment

Atlanta-based interactive TV technologies and services company, itaas, has announced that it is working with Comcast on a new program to “help cable operators quickly and reliably deploy a standard interactive television platform” based on CableLabs’ EBIF specification. Under the terms of the companies’ deal, itaas will license an EBIF engine developed by TVWorks (note: the latter, which was initially a joint venture between Comcast and Cox, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast), and offer cable MSO’s an EBIF deployment package that includes a license, deployment support, and maintenance services. “We are excited to support Comcast’s commitment to speed the deployment of interactive television to millions of set-top boxes,” itaas CEO, Vibha Rustagi, said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to leveraging the
experience we have built from working with cable companies, developers and other technology companies to help cable providers that want to give their customers the latest interactive experiences but may not have the resources to devote to it.” Added Mark Hess, Comcast’s SVP of video product development: “We’re using EBIF to help our customers enjoy new ways of interacting with the programming and services on their televisions with applications like caller-ID to the TV, and we’re trialing other EBIF features, including reminders to record favorite programs and using the remote to order from home shopping networks, that we’re planning to launch later this year. Combining innovative applications like these with itaas’ tremendous experience in deploying them will create new opportunities for developers and programmers to build new interactive capabilities that can be delivered to even more consumers, regardless of who their cable provider is.”

As part of its new EBIF deployment package, itaas says it will provide each MSO customer with a list of applications and programmers that have already been validated for deployment. Because the listed applications are built on the industry-standard EBIF spec, they should be easily launched on any cable system that has deployed the EBIF platform, itaas says. Examples of verified networks and application providers on the list include Showtime Networks, iCueTV, Integra5 and TAG Networks. itaas is also billing the new program as enabling participating MSO’s to benefit from its “decade-long expertise from working with multiple technology vendors, application developers and MSO’s.”

itaas’s new EBIF engine licensing agreement with TVWorks builds on a year-old partnership between the two companies, under which itaas, as part of its iStart Developer Program, offers application developers the TVWorks ETV development kit, as well as support for developing applications that run on the TVWorks platform.