Comcast (News - Alert) Media Center (CMC) and itaas Inc. have entered a joint marketing agreement that will speed up application development and reduce time to market for cable’s enhanced and tru2way services.

 

The two companies have teamed up for providing enhanced television (ETV) and EBIF-compliant application development and testing support for the HITS AxIS platform. This platform serves as a meeting place for companies desirous of advancing interactive television.

 

 “itaas’ considerable experience in interactive television application development, testing, integration and post-deployment support will help expand support for our HITS AxIS platform,” said Gary Traver, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Comcast Media Center.

 

“Together, CMC and itaas will help expand the pool of application developers using the ETV and tru2way platforms and offer expanded toolsets that translate into quick and efficient rollouts of compelling enhanced television services available on today’s set-top boxes,” added Tarver.

 

CMC and itaas will provide application development, quality assurance, testing and integration support for the Comcast Media Center HITS AxIS platform. Lab facilities and equipment through the HITS AxIS platform will be made available to service providers and application developers. Besides, a large selection of tru2way and legacy set-top boxes will also be made available.

 

The istart developer program from itaas will help content providers and application developers to submit their tru2way and ETV applications for testing. Itaas will replicate the cable plant profiles that CMC uses for deploying iTV applications to its MSO partners.

 

Vibha Rustagi, itaas’ president and CEO said that itaas will benefit from working with CMC, a leader in content management and distribution. This agreement is expected to augment the development of new services and expand support for the HITS AxIS platform. itaas will now be able to expand the iTV application landscape with its experience and toolsets for cable operators, programmers and application developers.

 

itaas has several years of experience in interactive television services and it offers services like client and server side application development, quality assurance, testing, integration and post-deployment support. HITS AxIS is a centralized resource which supports development, delivery and management of advanced interactive applications using the ETV Enhanced Television-Binary Interchange Format platform and also the tru2way platform.

 

Denver-based Comcast Media Center (CMC) is a business unit of Comcast Cable. It offers centralized content management and distribution solutions for cable systems, video content providers and advertisers. Its content distribution platforms include HITS Quantum all-digital portfolio and VOD In a Box besides HITS AxIS which is a suite of services that support the development and delivery of iTV applications and HITS Broadband, a carrier-class IP connectivity service.