2017 was a great year for ACCESS. The industry has finally started to recognise that it needs to adopt a unified approach to connected entertainment, by ensuring that consumers can access all of their content via a single application from any device (including inside the car!). ACCESS has been at the forefront of this multiscreen revolution, which is exemplified by our collaborations with DTVKit, Foxxum, Hisense, JVC KENWOOD, Nintendo, Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) and Zenterio.
We kicked off the year with the announcement that Jio had deployed ACCESS Twine™ to power its multiscreen service, targeting 100 million subscribers across India. As well as providing access to Jio’s own branded content (available in the cloud), the service incorporates the user’s own personal library and a full range of external sources such as YouTube, Dropbox, Google Drive and social media content in and out of the home. We always knew that we were breaking new ground with Jio, but it was fantastic to have our work recognised through two leading industry accolades: the ‘Multiscreen TV Award’ at the Content Innovation Awards, and a CSI Award for ‘Best TV Everywhere or Multi-screen Video’.
However, Jio was just the first in a number of milestones that we announced in this ground-breaking year. In March, Nintendo extended our long-standing partnership by selecting NetFront™ Browser for its new Nintendo Switch™ game console – the seventh model to use the ACCESS NetFront Browser series. Our family of browsers also found a home with Hisense, who deployed NetFront™ Browser BE to power its new 4K TV models and offer advanced web viewing on large high-definition screens.
We are strong believers in the use of open standards and the role they will play in transforming the industry – and we showed it once again at IBC, where we showcased some results of our ongoing partnership with Zenterio to provide a seamless experience across all screens for a range of tier 1 operators. The big news for us at the show was our brand new collaboration with DTVKit to offer open standards-based solutions to the connected entertainment industry for all kinds of services. The results of these two collaborations will help operators to differentiate themselves by deploying next generation, open-standard based multiscreen services in a market that is becoming increasingly crowded.
While we have celebrated some strong successes in the home entertainment industry, consumers now want to access content both in and out of the home. Moving forward, the connected car will become an extension of our home entertainment and we are already starting to join the dots between the two with our technologies. For example, JVC KENWOOD uses our NetFront™ Browser NX for its custom in-vehicle device, which can be deployed by car manufacturers as part of their in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. The IVI market will keep evolving and we have big ambitions for 2018, which you can discover in an eBook available for download on our website.
We look forward to continuing the transformation of the connected entertainment industry in 2018, with new partners and stronger ties with everyone who has supported us along the way. We’ll be attending the GENIVI reception at CES in January, so please get in touch if you would like to meet us at the show. Until then, from the entire ACCESS team and myself – have a wonderful time over this festive season.
