Brightcove Announces Beacon, a Time-Saving OTT App Creator
Looking to help customers shave time off the process of over-the-top (OTT) video app creation, cloud video solutions company Brightcove announced a new product called Beacon. With Beacon, clients will be able to streamline the process of creating apps for multiple platforms.
Brightcove Beacon will come in three parts, writes vice president of product management Mykola Konrad in a blog post: a content management system (CMS), an admin panel, and an application generator. Use the product to create one app, he writes, and it will automatically generate others with the same look that draw upon the same content library. The software-as-a-service offering will create apps for nine smart TV platforms and four connected devices.
In an interview with StreamingMedia.com, Brightcove execs declined to offer specifics about Beacon, including the price or the exact platforms that will be supported, saying the company will offer more information close to the service's October 31 general availability date. Today's announcement is simply to let people know that the company is working on a turnkey, quick-to-market solution and will offer demos at IBC, they said.
Brightcove recently acquired TV App Agency, a company with offices in London and Portugal that offered a similar service as Beacon. That company's URL now defaults to Brightcove's OTT experience page, which mentions Beacon. In an interview, Brightcove execs denied that TV App Agency's product was renamed Beacon, and said the acquisition was about acquiring talent, not software. Brightcove isn't saying how much it paid for TV App Agency, but an SEC filing posted online dated August 16, 2019, details a $3.25 million all-equity payment by Brightcove for an unnamed company. Asked about the payment, CMO Sara Larsen declined to provide details.
In late September, StreamingMedia.com broke news that Brightcove had made a sudden end-of-life announcement for the Ooyala Backlot OVP, and that customers were left with little time to plan a transition. In its email to customers, Brightcove said as of September 1 "the capability to access source/mezzanine files from your Backlot account will be unavailable." That was another unusual move, and one that make transitioning to anything other than Brightcove's OVP a burden. Asked if Brightcove had revisited that decision to make the process easier for customers, Larsen said, "The customers that that scenario effects we're working with one-on-one, and have very specific migration plans with. We're confident and comfortable that we have a good plan in motion with each of those customers."
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