Gudjon’s Blog

The Zignal Applications Marketplace

Following the introduction of our (Software as a Service) Zignal Cloud platform, we now offer a strong partnership framework for vendors and software application developers in the IPTV space.

This is a platform where vendors of IPTV solutions can be pre-integrated with the Zignal Cloud API, with the primary goal to make it easier for new service providers to launch their IPTV services.

The partnership framework outlines the areas on which the companies join forces. These areas are;

• Pre-integration of technologies
• Value added sales arrangements
• Joint promotional efforts
   

Zignal Cloud

Zignal Cloud is the server infrastructure for TV set-top boxes, PC, media centers and mobile devices. The consumer can experience rich media service on a Zignal-enabled device, as TV set-top boxes or their media enabled mobile handsets. Services include Video on Demand, Pause live TV and Personal Video Recording, to name a few. The Zignal client is entirely built on open standards and there is nothing in the client codebase that is proprietary, making it the de-facto solution to work with.

The Zignal Cloud offering is based on the Software-as-a-Service model. This means that Industria hosts a carrier-grade IPTV Service Delivery Platform in close cooperation with our infrastructure partners.

Zignal Cloud can be accessible through a host of APIs, where service providers are able to fully customize and integrate Zignal with their own software stack. Local media assets are managed within the back office environment of Zignal Cloud, including both IP video streams and On-Demand video assets.

As leading vendors of solutions can be pre-integrated with Zignal Cloud, the benefit for service providers is a far lower barrier to entry to get started with innovative IPTV services.

There is no start-up or initiation fee to establish a new account and the first 15 device licenses are free of charge. This means that service providers of any size are able to get started with IPTV services with minimum startup investment. Furthermore, developers can join in for no cost and implement Zignal Extensions and Zignal Applications or leverage the Zignal API with no cost associated and publish their own application offerings to the Zignal Applications Marketplace.

Benefits of the Zignal Applications Marketplace

The IPTV market is far too fragmented today, with inconsistency among deployed IPTV systems. However, applications published to the Zignal Applications Marketplace become available to all service providers using Zignal.

This means that application developers only integrate and deploy once and gain the benefit for each Zignal-based service provider.

Some vendors’ applications will require specific hardware to be installed at the service provider premises, like for streaming or ad-inserts. In these cases, the process to order this equipment has been dramatically simplified. Service providers can also learn what equipment is the most popular and gets the best ratings from the community.

Creating Zignal Applications for the Zignal Apps Marketplace

Zignal Applications and Extensions are created using the Zignal Application SDK and may have booth server and/or client side components. Industria offers this SDK for free, including an example application.

These applications can then be dynamically deployed, using flexible deployment rules on the Zignal platform, without rebooting the device client.

In addition to the Apps and Extension SDK, Zignal offers a powerful set of server side API functions. This API can be used to extend and fully integrate with server providers’ own software solutions, like provisioning and other backoffice systems. These API functions are:

• Provisioning API
• Billing API
• Account Manager API
• Entitlement API
• Schedule Manager API
• Session Manager API
• Asset Manager API
• Delivery Manager API
• Reminder API
   

I hope this gives a good insight into the potential of the Zignal Applications Marketplace and the extendability and openness of the platform.