Most Reliable OTT Solution Provider by The Enterprise World

WWW.THEENTERPRISEWORLD.COM | AMERICAS EDITION | JUNE 2022

Most

Reliable OTT Solution Provider

Marlene Kisslinger, Co-Founder & Director of Customer Care

Cover Story:

...and how streaming changed the world

From Editor’s Desk “To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.” – Thomas Watson, Sr., Former CEO, IBM

TT (Over-the-Top) services have been prevalent for quite some time now. But the COVID-19 pandemic gave these services, and their respective companies an unmeasurable growth space. As the space grew with quite a lot of companies, the competition dropped down to not who provides the most affordable service, but who provides the most seamless experience and has the best-inclass expertise. This issue of The Enterprise World, Most Reliable OTT Solution Provider, features some of the most prominent names in the OTT service industry. These companies offer exemplary services, backed by expert teams that have been delivering successful solutions even when OTT was little known to everyone. They are the pioneers, and hands down one of the most reliable OTT solution providers. Featured on the cover story, we have Lightcast. Lightcast.com has been one of the leading names, showcasing its expertise via comprehensive and innovative multi-platform distribution and end-to-end OTT solutions. The company started its journey in 2010, with its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. They aim to enable publishers to create and manage TV Apps, Mobile Apps, Web Apps, and Social Accounts in real-time. Grab an exclusive interview with AGK Karunakaran, President and CEO, MulticoreWare. MulticoreWare is a software development company that offers cutting-edge products and services on multicore and multi-thread CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, FPGAs, and various AI hardware accelerators. There is a lot more to read inside. Happy Reading!

Shalmali Shalmali W.

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For Editorial Concerns: editor@theentetpriseworld.com For Sales & Branding Enquiries: sales@theenterpriseworld.com For Subscription: info@theenterpriseworld.com Publisher The Enterprise World Creative Content Editor Shalmali W. | Adeeb Marketing Coordinator Peter J. PR & Marketing Coordinator James H. Business Development Executive Jessica S. Creative Design Head: Sushant K. Social Media Manager Narendra S. Digital Circulation Manager Amanda V. Digital Marketing Executive Prachi K. This list is NOT a ranking. The companies on listed in magazine serve different aspects of the market, making ranking them in any order except revenue impossible and unfair. We try to bring a perfect platform for business organization to showcase their valued products/ services. Copyrights © The Enterprise World | 2019. All Rights Reserved. The images and content included in this magazine should not be copied, transferred or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronics, mechanical, photocopying, recording, otherwise, without proper permission from The Enterprise World. The Enterprise World solely owns all the reprint rights.

Leaders in Spotlight The Covid-19 pandemic pushed the world of business to go digital. And this was a perilous time, but it opened a new door of opportunities. One of the services that has become highly relevant is OTT services. But as the space grew, a lot of companies came into the picture, aiming for the top spot. Featured in this edition are some of the earliest names and pioneers in the OTT industry. These companies, services, leadership, and standards are milestones for the whole industry. They oﬀer an innovative, intuitive, and seamless service that makes sure your customers get an unmatched OTT experience! On the cover story, we have Lightcast. Lightcast.com has been one of the leading names, showcasing its expertise via comprehensive and innovative multiplatform distribution and end-to-end OTT solutions. The company started its journey in 2010, with its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. They aim to enable publishers to create and manage TV Apps, Mobile Apps, Web Apps, and Social Accounts in realtime. Grab an exclusive interview with AGK Karunakaran, President, and CEO, MulticoreWare. MulticoreWare is a software development company that oﬀers cutting-edge products and services on multicore and multi-thread CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, FPGAs, and various AI hardware accelerators.

10. Lightcast

26. MulticoreWare

20. OTT & Smart TV App Development Trends to Watch Out for in 2022

30. Are OTT platforms turning into garbage cans, providing a way for not-so-good content?

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Lighting up your life - Lightcast! Lightcast.com has been one of the leading names, showcasing its expertise via comprehensive and innovative multiplatform distribution and end-to-end OTT solutions. The company started its journey in 2010, with its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

T The recent years have brought a lot of challenges to the world of business, but it also paved the way for a lot of new industries, fostering innovation and vision. One of the major ﬁelds that grew manifold in terms of demand and innovation was the OTT industry. Lightcast is one of the pioneers of multi-platform distribution and end-toend OTT. They have been in the industry for more than a decade, perfecting their services, and creating comprehensive yet scalable solutions for their clients. Their services are advanced, backed with immense experience and expertise of Lightcast's talented and handpicked team. Together the company forms a service and support mix that is highly sought-after, making them one of the most respected and reliable OTT solution providers.

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They aim to enable publishers to create and manage TV Apps, Mobile Apps, Web Apps, and Social Accounts in realtime. To achieve their goal they offer an award-winning CMS, the Media Cloud, enabling publishers to upload, transcode, store and manage all on-demand contents, live-streams, gallery thumbnails and image files, metadata, language versions, subtitle files, and other sidecar files, for real-time publishing across websites, mobile apps, web apps, TV apps, and social media platforms. Let's get to know the initial challenges faced by Lightcast, from Marlene Kisslinger | Co-Founder & Director of Customer Care “We always knew that we would need to invest into marketing and sales, but always kept anything which drives revenue on the backburner. For the first ten years, we were way too much in love with the product and process. For us it seemed like building the product was easy, but marketing was no priority of ours. We focused on refining the products and services, invested into infrastructure and product development. For many years, our CEO was the only sales rep. He consulted and closed every single customer. We went to two or three trade shows per year and customers accidently stumbled across us. Others found us online

“We were not built as an overnight wonder to exit quickly at inﬂated valuations. We built Lightcast.com to service customers for many decades. In a sense we are antiinﬂated but focus on intrinsic value, deep underlying tech, and long-term sustainability. If we had to choose between explosive growth during 12 months or 12 years of consistent and sustainable growth, we would pick 12 years of consistent growth every single time without hesitation.”, -Marlene Kisslinger, Co-Founder & Director of Customer Care

C O V E R S T O R Y

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because our website ranked well with search engines. After a decade of organic, all inbound growth, primarily through customer referrals, we decided to launch our first little online ad campaign on Facebook.” Factors aiding the growth of Lightcast, establishing their longstanding success Customer referrals and organic search traffic brought consistent inbound growth of solid long-term customers. The past 3 years boosted their growth which was due to a mix of timing and the launch of online marketing. Also, the pandemic and lockdown proved to be a blessing in disguise, helping them to grow their company, as organizations rapidly pushed for an online presence and footprint. It is their management's unshakeable determination and longevity that established their long-standing success. Lightcast.com's sustainability and dominant presence in the market over the past decade, built a rock-solid reputation and trust among clients that makes them one of the most soughtafter companies in their field, establishing a dominant position in the market and the hearts of their clients. What establishes their success is their focus and dedication to perfecting their services. Back in 2012, they accepted a handful of clients, working with their feedback and evolving their services in their development phase. They officially started accepting clients in 2014, which received a staggering response, owing to their indomitable services and support. This allowed Lightcast.com to record a 1600% rise in monthly recurring revenue within seven years.

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take our

As a SaaS company with long-term contracts for recurring business services, they can project continuous growth with comparatively high accuracy. Judging by the recent growth acceleration, they expect YoY growth in the mid-double-digits over the upcoming years, without any investment into marketing or sales, into acquisitions of smaller streaming providers, or strategic partnerships.

innovative ideas,

Services oﬀered by Lightcast, and what sets them apart

mix them with

The majority of Lightcast.com's customers seek to launch TV Apps across the main device platforms and app-stores, including AppleTV, FireTV, Roku, and AndroidTV/GoogleTV. Many of their customers either have no TV Apps yet, or only a few such as Roku, and seek to extend their portfolio of publishing properties. The majority of Startups and Vloggers come to Lightcast.com to launch TV Apps and/or Mobile Apps for streaming. One of the key factors why content creators and media publishers choose Lightcast.com is the costeﬃciency and opportunity to save on valuable ﬁnancial resources because Lightcast.com is usually less expensive than other “patchwork-solutions''. An increasing number of large media corporations are going away from building and maintaining a patchwork system inhouse with an expensive workforce and infrastructures.

“That is why our decision process is quite simple:

our customers' requests and feedback and schedule them according to the value they add to our customers' operations and goals” -Marlene Kisslinger, Co-Founder & Director of Customer Care

Such an expensive patchwork setup requires service contracts with multiple vendors, extensive inhouse staﬀ on payroll with all of the necessary experience and skillsets, and an increased need for overhead

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management. Lightcast.com simplifies OTT and multi-platform publishing for organizations of all sizes – from the smallest to the largest. Aside from the financial savings, one of the key reasons that set Lightcast apart is that they allow them to “get more done faster” through the proprietary Media Cloud real-time content and app management system. All connected publishing properties, such as apps, players, podcasts, social media channels, can be managed in one place, with syndicated workflows, and all user/viewer data and reporting is in one place. All these factors mixed with comprehensive and precise support and services allow clients to get the maximum out of Lightcast.com, and grow. This makes Lightcast one of the foremost and pioneering companies in providing multi-platform distribution and end-to-end OTT solutions. How Lightcast is planning to go ahead with the changing times and trends Lightcast.com considers its customers to be the most important stakeholders in the company, regarding their client's feedback as valuable as revenue. Their goal is to make sure that their customer-facing teams always listen to their client's challenges, needs, goals, and requirements. They use all of this knowledge to form their roadmap accordingly and tweak their service and support strategy, allowing clients to influence priorities. They believe that the greatest idea, the loftiest technology, does not do any good if it does not solve a problem, if it does not contribute enough value to customers.

What's new in the service arsenal of Lightcast? Lightcast and its team are always looking to expand and evolve their core software service and awardwinning media management and distribution system, the Lightcast “Media Cloud” ®. Works are underway for innovative Media Cloud® features and new functionalities, that include more automation features for media workflows, new monetization features, as well as extensions of the Analytics Suite in the Media Cloud®. Their new app framework development partner MEGASTREAM has numerous new app templates and feature sets ready for integration into the Media Cloud®. They are also in the works of launching the next level of their real-time App Builder and other real-time app controls in the Media Cloud® over the course of this year. Pillars of Lightcast.com To run such a company that is highly vested in providing foolproof and comprehensive solutions requires a team that is dedicated, strives for perfection, and fires up innovation in everything they do. Much more than that it requires a leadership that can not only effectively channelize their potential, foster creativity, and lead the company. Lightcast has been bestowed with great, talented, and highly capable leaders leading its direction and growth. Marlene Kisslinger, Co-Founder & Director of Customer Care, is passionate about media and technology, but also about design and customer experiences. She is a powerhouse of ideas and innovation,

but she feels that the most important thing is to remain focused and to sift through ideas. “It is like a funnel which narrows down the most valuable ideas with the greatest potential for success. Coming from a small country in which reliability has often been valued over lofty ideas, quality over quantity, and understatement over euphoria, has sometimes been a check and balance for me. I prefer the euphoric can-do attitude over skeptical hesitation, but the focus on reliability and quality can be powerful”, Marlene adds. Views on the responsibilities of an entrepreneur Marlene feels entrepreneurs should be passionate about the solutions they provide to their customers and have a strong sense of responsibility to contribute towards society and the greater good. They also need to be a good listener to best understand their customer, their problems, and their needs. “On an operational level, an entrepreneur needs to listen, evaluate and absorb in verticals: mentors, investors, customers, and employees”, Marlene adds. These are all focus groups for an entrepreneur, people who provide valuable feedback and input to shape, sharpen and improve all products, services, systems, and processes. The team of Lightcast Lightcast is a micro-multinational company with small oﬃces and teams in multiple locations. This has taught them to be mindful of good processes and communication, and a great sense of trust. Multiple teams and oﬃces, and many young hires, have

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automatically required a high level of trust towards their employees, long before the year 2020 that marked the launch of the work-from-home trend. They have implemented remoteworking processes from the start of the company over a decade ago as managing multiple offices automatically requires communication over distances because certain offices and employees will always be “remote”. This gave them an edge, especially during the lockdown and the pandemic times. The team knows that they can work self-directed and that they are an integral part of shaping the company and its future. Since the company never took on external capital, never formed a large board with glamorous outsiders, never sold to investors or sought advantages from other people's influence and network, the team and the company's customers became, and remained, their most important stakeholders. In that respect, Lightcast.com was built quite differently than the common model of tech startups. All of these factors add to the core values of the company, establishing a sense of oneness within the team towards the company and its services. Also, the expertise and decades of combined experience with successful implementations and extraordinary results, make the team of Lightcast indomitable, striving for perfection, working in unison to push Lightcast.com as the pioneer and leader in multi-platform distribution and end-to-end OTT solutions.

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It's a rat race out there. How do you cope with that? “Stepping off the treadmill periodically and letting the momentum continue to turn the wheel”, Marlene Kisslinger says. “Then step back to accelerate the wheel again. For me, those moments of recharge are best enjoyed in the Austrian Alps and on the water, together with the people I love the most. I believe nature is God’s gift to mankind, designed for us to draw fresh energy from. I can listen and hear best in the quiet serenity of nature.” “But most importantly it is necessary to know how to step back into the rat race to continue the race”, Marlene continues. “And to quote my favorite book, the Bible, I want to “run the race in such a way that I may finish it", not just to be a winner, but most of all to be an accomplisher, the one who saw it through to completion (1. Corinthians 9:24). To me this simple scripture sounds much more like a marathon than like a sprint, it sounds more like finding the rhythm and stamina to endure a long, steady run, rather than rapid exhaustion on a short sprint. And that is how we build our businesses as well. That is how we built Lightcast.com.”

OTT & Smar Developmen to Watch O 202

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rt TV App nt Trends Out for in 22

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BY THE ENTERPRISE WORLD

2. Predictive Analytics

Streaming movies and television shows on smart TVs have been on the rise, especially during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This presented a challenge for app developers to design apps that would keep viewers entertained and engaged. Many app developers don’t focus speciﬁcally on smart TV app development, as they launch apps for wellknown streaming devices/platforms and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

Predictive analytics helps to collect data and use it to identify trends and forecast future events. An example of this can be found in the speciﬁc movies or shows that smart TV apps may now suggest, based on your streaming history. This feature is found in smart TV apps like Netﬂix & Hulu. However, predictive analytics is expected to be implemented on a mainstream level in 2021 for most, if not all, smart TV app development.

However, viewers have been streaming more OTT content from smart TVs than other avenues in the post-COVID landscape. These OTT media services directly provide content to consumers, without the need for traditional broadcast, cable, or satellite television platforms. Many consumers are now slowly moving away from traditional pay-TV providers.

3. Customization

Most smart TVs with built-in OTT apps offer an allinclusive package. They claim to deliver crisp video features like 8K Ultra HD and advanced audio capabilities. The unified app-based platforms need to enable viewers to access various content from different OTT platforms easily with no more than a few clicks. Despite promising many positive benefits, most interfaces for smart TV apps leave a lot to be desired. OTT media services are starting to take advantage of the opportunity to shift to smart TV app development new trends. The following are some of the best trends for smart TV app development. 1. 5G Technology 5G is one of the major rollouts that will have a significant impact on TV apps development in 2021. The technology is assured to change how apps are created and used by resellers, developers, and creators. There will be approximately 3.5 times more 5G connections in 2021 compared to 2020. This will influence the speed and drastically improve it. It’s expected that 5G will provide a 10x times decrease in latency. It will also boost traffic capacity and network efficiency. 5G is expected to be 100 times faster than 4G, depending on the app developer. The functionality of smart TV app development will be boosted by the penetration of 5G. Performance won’t be affected when smart TV app development adds new features.

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Customization is a popular feature in apps developed for smart TVs. While it is great to have an app with predictive abilities regarding shows or movies you may be interested in, it is even better to customize your viewing experience based specifically on what you desire. Many apps allow you to set up your own custom notifications when specific

movies you are looking for, are available on the app. You can also set notiﬁcations for when new episodes of your favorite TV shows are available for streaming. Many apps also allow individual proﬁles to be created for each viewer. This allows each individual within a household to have their own individualized viewing experience. 4. Competition is rising in the OTT Hosting Industry Authority in the OTT industry is typically held by a few large companies. However, a handful of small, yet growing OTT streaming services are beginning to make a name for themselves. All those platforms need support from online video platforms to operate at an optimal level. Currently, there are many viable OTT hosting solutions. People use them for content management, distribution, and support. They have several amazing features, including livestreaming capabilities.

5. Voice Control The days of typing out lengthy movie or show titles via remote control will soon come to an end. Voice control is a feature being incorporated into a growing number of smart TV app development. Voice control features will also allow you to start, stop, and pause a movie or TV show. You can also sort through viewing options with commands like “Show Horror Movies” or “Show New Releases.” As voice control technology becomes more integrated into homes, smart TVs will continue to provide even more options that can be controlled simply using your voice. Conclusion OTT & smart TV app development is constantly improving and getting better by the day. App developers who fail to evolve or maintain the use of the latest technological advances, will not be able to remain competitive in the current marketplace. However, those who do will gain an edge in the smart TV app development market. This is a beneﬁt to consumers who can watch a wider variety of high-quality content for lower prices due to the steep competition. The continuously changing viewing habits of modern society will continue to create opportunities for businesses with the courage and foresight to lead the way into the future.

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Are OTT platforms turn providing a way for n

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ning into garbage cans, not-so-good content?

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ast year when we all got locked in the home, we all were in a continuous quest for some good entertainment to pass the crucial time. To have some good time without stepping out, people preferred watching content like movies and shows on their mobile phones, laptops, and TV screens. As the lockdown stretched

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legs, people’s hunger for good content went on increasing and they shifted to OTT platforms. When we get hungry, we might think of having anything eatable. And as the audience says, content creators and OTT platforms served them anything that just consumed data but failed to make their moments.

The closed theater doors inspired people in the entertainment business to think of new platforms to present their ready content. In the last few years, OTT platforms (Over the Top platforms), started taking place of DTH due to their large library and freedom to access it at any time and most importantly at an aﬀordable cost. People in the entertainment business took the opportunity created by lockdown, presented their content on OTT’s with win-win deals, and tried to save their business. People say some movies or shows are so pathetic on OTTs that if they were released in theaters, there might be a hard-hitting silence at box oﬃces.

In India, the mainstream film industry is called Bollywood, regional film industries like Tollywood are the main areas where films get produced. It is said that the production houses having a strong network in the industry, publish their content on popular streaming apps regardless of content quality. When we talked with some young film enthusiasts, they said, some Hindi web shows are getting popular just because of the trending web series wave, if the same shows get released as a film franchise, they will face huge losses. Entertainment is a huge business, more than 9 million people in India earn their bread and butter by working hard to entertain people. The pandemic closed theaters and stopped the production of content making all these people jobless. In this context, if projects get released on OTT platforms, it can help all those workers financially and morally too. The harder getting business equations in the film industry are unfortunately forcing production houses to ignore the content quality and think of profits only. But as we know, content is king! OTT’s productions called Originals are ahead in the content race as they work on analysis, keep an eye on viewers changing mindsets, etc. Are OTT platforms turning into garbage cans? Are OTT platforms turning into the trash cans providing a way for the content that can’t mark its good presence on the box office? This question has many answers as an audience have different taste of the content. OTT Platforms in India, there is no such classification as masses and classes as masses turn into classes if they got served with good content and in a celebration mood, classes turn out into masses and enjoy their life at fullest. A real question that arises here is, if originals from these OTTs have better content quality, why do they publish notso-good content from different production houses? Don’t they care about their brand identity? If we dig deeper, the marketing strategies for Originals are much advanced and innovative than the partnered content, ensuring that the platform will remain in talks and crack major profitable deals with bigger production houses for their not-so-good content. In our previous article on OTT platforms, Online entertainment platforms, a new king in the entertainment business. readout how OTT businesses took over traditional film businesses and how!