| Video Platform Vendor of the Year: Microsoft |
Ben Huang, worldwide marketing director for Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, looks at the main trends driving its growth.
While historically technology handled one medium or accomplished one or two tasks, through technological convergence devices are now able to present and interact with a wide array of media. With this evolution, the primary use of a device has radically blurred. The balance has shifted from a screen-centric attitude to an experience-centric attitude.
The major trends we're seeing right now are increased shipments of connected devices, a surge in video IP traffic and growth in digital entertainment. This means that consumers expect seamless access to this content across any device from anywhere and they want it from a single service provider.
We also recognize that with the growth of these content experiences, there will be an opportunity for software to redefine how the consumer will interact and engage with TV moving forward. Operators want an integrated platform across their TV and video entertainment offerings to drive these connected scenarios across all the devices in the consumer's life.
What do you see as your biggest challenges?
The TV and entertainment market has gone through huge changes in the last few years and is still evolving. We're continually looking at what services and offerings consumers want, not only today, but also in the next three to five years, and are working with our operator partners to create differentiated and customized offerings.
What are operators' main pain points?
Operators are at the heart of this connected world. And yet the pace of change is so fast that they too face challenges in ensuring they stay competitive given their significant investment in their assets (networks, data centers, retail investments). This trend is not over. As a matter of fact we are just about to face another round of capex spending from carriers all around the world to lay the ground for future networks (LTE or 4G in the mobile space and accelerate the pace of fixed-line broadband, both in emerging and developed markets). This leaves an even bigger appetite among operators for monetization of those assets.