Accomplishing the 'Ecosystem' for Convergent Services Offerings

摘要

In the emerging world of converged services, (voice, data, video and applications), both the content creators and the service providers share the challenge of making services delivery work profitably. These businesses are recognising the need to transform so as to allow for rapid reaction to market dynamics, without interruption to current services, and with the ability to provide dynamic service provision for spikes in demand. To do so requires greater skill at linking corporate strategy to business execution and underlying operations. Providers are defining models for how to personalise, market, and protect rich media content in ways that both satisfy consumers and ensure that content and service providers get paid. Providers are stepping up to the challenge of how to bill for the content distribution and manage the sharing of revenue; enforce digital rights management (DRM) schemes to protect content; and harvest and measure content usage, demographics and other business intelligence data. Since delivery technologies vary widely, providers are weighing how to perform these functions over multiple distribution platforms profitably. This paper discusses how these challenges are being addressed via an 'ecosystem' created by the telcos, consumer electronics and media industries, all of which are leveraging IT advances in IP-based infrastructure to mobilise the changes towards converged service offerings. As a proof point for the success of convergence thus far, this paper inspects the current developments in video on demand and IPTV services.