ThePlatform

Last updated
thePlatform
Type of business Subsidiary
Founded2000
Dissolved 2016
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington
,
USA
Owner Comcast (from 2006)
Key peopleIan Blaine (CEO)
IndustryVideo on demand services
Employees190
URL www.theplatform.com

thePlatform was a Seattle, Washington based online video publishing company that was acquired by Comcast in 2006. [1] The company worked with digital media companies to manage and publish video and audio. It was absorbed into the newly formed Comcast Technology Solutions division in October 2016. [2]

Contents

Products

thePlatform's mpx is a video management system, providing publishing tools targeting PCs, mobile phones, and TVs. mpx Essentials is a service marketed towards businesses with smaller video libraries. [3] [4] The mpx Dev Kit provides tools for enhancing video management systems and offers a video player design canvas.

History

thePlatform was founded in 2000 by Ian Blaine, Andrew Olson, Alan Ramaley, Andy Sodt, Rahul Sonnad, and Brad Chodos-Irvine. Previously, in 1998, Blaine and Sodt founded an online personal information management company, Uniplanet, which was acquired by NBCi in 1999.

Purchase by Comcast

In June 2006, Comcast purchased the Seattle-based software company thePlatform. This represented Comcast's entry into a new line of business, selling software to allow companies to manage their Internet (and IP-based) media publishing efforts. In 2014, co-founder Ian Blaine was replaced as CEO by Marty Roberts and Jamie Miller were appointed as co-CEOs. [5] [6] After operating as essentially a standalone unit for almost a decade, thePlatform came under the direction of Comcast Wholesale in 2015. [7] In 2016, it was absorbed into Comcast Technology Solutions.

Internet TV partnerships

Customers of thePlatform include Verizon Wireless, BBC Worldwide, [8] CNBC, MSNBC, CBS Sports, AP, NBC Local, and HiT Entertainment.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TiVo Corporation</span> American technology company (1983–2020)

TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. Now operating as Xperi, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property within the consumer electronics industry, including digital rights management, electronic program guide software, and metadata. The company holds over 6,000 pending and registered patents. The company also provides analytics and recommendation platforms for the video industry.

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has offices worldwide. Its U.S. offices are located in the states of California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its Canada offices are located in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

Quantum Corporation is a data storage, management, and protection company that provides technology to store, manage, archive, and protect video and unstructured data throughout the data life cycle. Their products are used by enterprises, media and entertainment companies, government agencies, big data companies, and life science organizations. Quantum is headquartered in San Jose, California and has offices around the world, supporting customers globally in addition to working with a network of distributors, VARs, DMRs, OEMs and other suppliers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emerson Electric</span> American multinational corporation

Emerson Electric Co. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri. The Fortune 500 company delivers a range of engineering services, manufactures industrial automation equipment, climate control systems, and precision measurement instruments, and provides software engineering solutions for industrial, commercial, and consumer markets.

Pace plc was a British company which developed set-top boxes (STBs), advanced residential gateways, software and services for the pay-TV and broadband services industry. Pace's customers included cable, telco, satellite and IPTV operators. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange until December 2015, when the company received the last of the regulatory clearances needed to allow a merger with Arris Group to proceed. In 2019, Arris was subsequently acquired by network infrastructure provider CommScope.

Atex is a company specializing in the development of advertising, editorial and web content management systems. The company was established in Massachusetts in 1973 and grew to become a worldwide hardware and software supplier to the publishing industry. It participated in much of the change in the print industry involving the move from hot-metal through photo and then laser typesetting, culminating in computer to plate (CTP). The company expanded to include web publishing as an integral part of its product line.

The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), while the separate Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards are given by its sister organization the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

Tungsten Automation, formerly Kofax Inc., is an Irvine, California-based intelligent automation software provider. Founded in 1985, the company's software allows businesses to automate and improve business workflows by simplifying the handling of data and documents.

Altium Limited is an American multinational software company that provides electronic design automation software to engineers who design printed circuit boards. Founded as Protel Systems Pty Ltd in Australia in 1985, the company has regional headquarters in the United States, Australia, China, Europe, and Japan. Its products are designed for use in a Microsoft Windows environment and used in industries such as automotive, aerospace, defence and telecommunications. Its flagship product, Altium Designer, is a software for unified electronics design. Since August 2024, Altium is a subsidiary of Renesas Electronics.

Follett Corporation is an American technology company headquartered in Westchester, Illinois. Follett is a provider of educational services and products to colleges, schools, and libraries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TIBCO Software</span> American enterprise software company

TIBCO Software Inc. is a business unit of Cloud Software Group that provides enterprise software. It has headquarters in Palo Alto and offices in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mediaroom</span>

Mediaroom is a collection of software for operators to deliver IPTV (IPTV) subscription services, including content-protected, live, digital video recorder, video on demand, multiscreen, and applications. These services can be delivered via a range of devices inside and outside customers' homes, including wired and Wi-Fi set top boxes, PCs, tablets, smartphones and other connected devices – over both the operator's managed IP networks as well as "over the top" (OTT) or unmanaged networks.

Workfront, Inc., was a Lehi, Utah-based software company that developed web-based work management and project management software that features enterprise work management, issue tracking, document management, time tracking and portfolio management. The company was founded in 2001 by Scott Johnson. Workfront has 1000 employees and approximately 4,000 customers with offices in the United States and EMEA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reksoft</span>

Reksoft is a Russian multidisciplinary consulting and technology group of companies delivering a full cycle of digital transformation services, from business strategy formation and transformation management to deployment of information systems, custom software development and support, tailored industrial automation projects implementation. Reksoft Group includes the companies Reksoft, Reksoft Consulting, RNT Group, Reksoft.Labs.

Ooyala was a privately owned company focusing on video content workflow management systems. It began in 2007 as a venture-backed, privately held company founded by brothers Bismarck Lepe and Belsasar Lepe, and their colleague and friend from Google, Sean Knapp. It was acquired by Australian Telecom giant Telstra in 2012, which sold it to Ooyala management in October 2018 writing off all its investment. In Feb 2019 Ooyala sold its OVP business to Brightcove.

Panopto is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Panopto provides software primarily for universities and enterprise businesses. Panopto's software is commonly used for lecture recording, screencasting, video streaming, and as video content management software, and is often used in remote work, e-learning, and corporate Training and development environments. The company was founded as a spinout of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 2007 by two of its professors—William Guttman and William Scherlis—in addition to former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Eric Burns and serial entrepreneur Brad Winney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iptor Supply Chain Systems</span> Software company based in Sweden

Iptor Supply Chain Systems, formerly International Business Systems (IBS), is a supply chain management company that provides professional services and enterprise resource management software for distributors and wholesalers, with its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. They were previously publicly traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and have offices in several countries. They are rated by AMR Research and Frost & Sullivan as the largest supply chain execution solutions company by revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CSG International</span> Corporation in Colorado, US

CSG is a multinational corporation headquartered in Englewood, Colorado. It provides business support systems (BSS) software and services, primarily to the telecommunications industry.

Grovo is a New York City-based company established in 2010 by Jeff Fernandez, Nick Narodny, and Surag Mungekar that develops a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform focused on microlearning, to allow users to create, manage, and distribute educational content.

WatchGuard, formally known as WatchGuard Technologies, Inc, is an American technology company based in Seattle, Washington. It specializes in network security solutions aimed at safeguarding computer networks from external threats such as malware and ransomware.

References

  1. "Comcast buys Seattle's thePlatform: Digital media firm will stay here". Seattle Post-Intelligencer . 27 June 2006. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  2. "New Comcast Technology Solutions™ Division Unites the Broadcast Expertise of Comcast Wholesale™ with the Digital Technologies of thePlatform® and THIS TECHNOLOGY™ to Power Every Screen | Comcast Technology Solutions". Comcast Technology Solutions. 19 October 2016. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  3. "thePlatform Goes Mid-Market, Introduces mpx Essentials To Compete With Brightcove And Ooyala". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  4. "Comcast's ThePlatform Overhauls Video System With 'MPX'". Multichannel. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  5. Spangler, Todd (8 May 2014). "Comcast Replaces Ian Blaine as CEO of ThePlatform Online-Video Unit". Variety. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  6. "ThePlatform co-founder Ian Blaine to step down after 14 years, new co-CEOs named". GeekWire. 2014-05-08. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  7. O'Neill, Jim (13 October 2015). "thePlatform realigns under Comcast Wholesale". VIDEOMIND. Ooyala. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  8. Whitney, Daisy (26 June 2007). "BBC Puts YouTube Channel on thePlatform". TVWeek. Archived from the original on December 18, 2009. Retrieved 9 June 2017.