Omneon aims to leverage strong 2008 for future growth
By Phil Kurz, Broadcast Engineering contributing writer
Omneon is healthy, prosperous and delivering product aimed at tapping into more than simply the market for playout servers.
That was the message Omneon CEO Suresh Vasudevan and Geoff Stedman, senior VP, products and markets, conveyed April 18 to members of the media attending its NAB Show press conference at the Palms Casino Resort.
While many companies struggled last year, Omneon grew 2008 revenues 43 percent, up from its 2007 revenue of $89 million, said Stedman. Perhaps insulating it to a degree from regions with shaky economies, the company reported its revenue is fairly well distributed geographically with the Americas accounting for 42 percent, EMEA 41 percent and APJ 17 percent.
Capping off his description of the company’s financial health, Stedman reported Omneon has a cash position of $34 million with no debt. The proof points seemed intended to emphasize that despite significant challenges in the broadcast industry, Omneon is financially sound and in a position to take the steps necessary to assure continued growth.
To that end, Omneon announced some new products and partnerships aimed at accelerating its growth despite economic uncertainty this year.
Among the company’s NAB announcements:
• Omneon MediaDeck GX a channel playout server combining graphics and audio processing that operates under a variety of automation systems, including those from Crispin, NVerzion, Pebble Beach Systems and Sundance Digital. With MediaDeck GX, Omneon is hoping to help broadcaster launch new services offerings and incrementally add to their existing channel lineups.
• Omneon MediaBridge software that will allow owners of Avid MediaStream servers to migrate content to Omneon Spectrum or MediaDeck media servers without transcoding.
• Omneon MediaPort 5500 HD/SD MPEG-2 and DV encoder-decoder; MediaPort 5600 AVC Intra encoder-decoder and MediaPort 6300 which adds a second channel.
• A new partnership with broadcast graphics provider Pixel Power to offer integrated solutions that leverage best-of-breed broadcast technologies. The first product stemming from this partnership is the new MediaDeck GX.
• Partnering with transport technology specialist Aspera. The partnership entails Aspera acquiring Omneon’s Castify content distribution business unit. Omneon will continue selling the ProCast CDN, but Aspera will assume its ongoing development. Aspera will work to integrate its fasp transport technology with ProCast and Omneon APIs.
While the company is intent on maintaining its position as a leading supplier of transmission playout servers, Omneon is positioning itself to claim a larger share of the production server market. That makes sense if its assessment that that the size of the production server market is four times that of the playout server market.
I spoke with Suresh Vasudevan following the press conference about the company’s partnership with Aspera.
