"Tuesday January 16, 9:03 am Eastern Time
Press Release
ICTV Signs With European Broadband Interface Design Leader Silicon Artists
New Partnership to Help ICTV Deploy BroadbandTV in Europe's Advanced ITV Markets
LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 16, 2001--ICTV, supplier of the only fully functional TV browser available for digital cable, and Madrid-based Silicon Artists, a leading developer of advanced user interfaces for entertainment, corporate and education applications, today announced an exclusive agreement.
Under the terms of the agreement, ICTV will work exclusively with Silicon Artists for design and development of ICTV's in-house interfaces and trial portals for the European Market. Silicon Artists will also assist ICTV with European market intelligence as well as sales and business development efforts in the region.
The technologically advanced and highly competitive Spanish cable market will be an excellent source of growth for ICTV, which has been running a highly successful trial with R Cable y Telecomunicaciones in La Coruna, Spain. Silicon Artists will leverage high-level operator relationships, industry-savvy and specific expertise with broadband and convergence applications to help ICTV penetrate the Spanish market. Both companies plan to expand to Pan European opportunities as well.
``The new relationship is a strong win for both companies,'' said Michael Collette, senior vice president of marketing and business development for ICTV. ``Silicon Artists has been doing excellent work in our specific arena for many years. Their senior management team offers ICTV world-class insight into current opportunities and dynamics shaping the future of the European market.
``Their ability to develop in Spanish and Portuguese will be an incredible asset both in Europe and in our new Latin American ventures. As experts actually building the consumer product, they understand the technology and the business. I believe we'll do big things together.''
Simon Birrell, president and CEO of Silicon Artists, believes ICTV's BroadbandTV solution has a huge future in European markets. ``In Europe, we've already taken ITV a long way. We know what middleware can do. We've seen its strengths -- and its limitations. We also have a very different Internet economy and culture that affords a cable TV solution great advantages,'' he said.
``We believe ICTV will be a strong offering in Europe because it will allow highly competitive cable operators a great new source of significant advantage over DBS and will bring powerful new applications with great revenue potential. The timing here is superb. This is going to be very exciting.''
About ICTV
ICTV supplies world-leading communications infrastructure for ITV solutions to network operators. The company's digital ITV delivery platform provides cable operators with a headend-based solution that enables delivery of broadband Internet, e-mail and Interactive TV applications to any digital set top. ICTV's TV Browser, which can be used to support any HTML-based Rich Media application or Open Internet Access applications, is the only open TV Browser capable of supporting diverse sources and types of broadband, streaming media.
The TV Browser is uniquely capable of supporting a large selection of rich media plugins such as RealNetworks' RealPlayer®, Apple's QuickTime(TM), Macromedia's Flash(TM) and Shockwave(TM), and Microsoft's® Windows Media(TM) Player.
Any application running on the ICTV platform can run on any digital set-top box -- regardless of thickness. The system does not require any sort of middleware application in the set top. Employing a patented frequency reuse solution, ICTV is fully scalable on any two-way HFC cable system. All standard Internet content and applications will work on the ICTV system -- including broadband content requiring large bandwidth or advanced plug-ins.
The company has 16 issued patents and 12 patents pending. Investors and strategic partners include ACTV (Nasdaq:IATV - news), Adelphia (Nasdaq:ADLAC - news), Cox (NYSE:COX - news), Lauder Partners, Liberty Digital (Nasdaq:LDIG - news), Motorola (NYSE:MOT - news), OpenTV (Nasdaq:OPTV - news), Shaw Communications (NYSE:SJR - news; TSE:SJR.B - news) and Gemstar - TV Guide (Nasdaq:GMST - news).
ICTV can be found on the World Wide Web at ictv.com.
About Silicon Artists
Silicon Artists is a Madrid-based high-end convergence services company, focused on the design and construction of broadband user interfaces for the three key broadband platforms: Interactive TV, broadband PC and the networked kiosk. Clients in Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom include telcos and cable operators (Telefonica, Telefonica Cable, Menta, Madritel, Supercable), media companies (Planet Hollywood, Antena 3 TV, Sony) and corporations and institutions (Compaq, Wanadoo, Navegalia and the Andalusian Health Service).
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Contact:
ICTV, 408/364-9432
Catherine Duenas, cduenas@ictv.com
or
JRPR, 818/709-8270
Jeff Rosenberg, jeff@jeffrpr.com
Humberto "Bert" DaFonte, dafonte@jeffrpr.com
or
Silicon Artists, +34 91 446 6421
Simon Birrell, simon@siliconartists.com
Alejandro Sacristan, alejandro@siliconartists.com
(Spanish)"
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