10 Sep
Who are you? What is your role in Beenius?
My name is Uroš Zorčič and I’m a CTO at Beenius.
How 2021 will evolve in the industry?
I believe this year will bring us changes on the infrastructural and content side. There will be more push on cloud-based solutions. We faced partial or complete travel restrictions, so on-prem deployments were challenging. Cloud services are more or less omnipresent and not prone to daily changes of covid-19 policies.
On the content side, I believe interactivity will be redefined, allowing live performers better contact with the audience, which is sitting in their living rooms instead of theatres.
The younger generation finds new ways to watch movies with friends and has a live discussion from their bubbles, and so would those improvised solutions be ported to media platforms.
What will be the growth points of TV subscribers in 2021 for operators? What kind of role the Beenius' products can play in that?
Operators will have to make the service onboarding process much simpler and faster for the end-user. Visiting a local office to sign the subscription contract is just a matter of the past. Users must be able to sign-up with the service from a mobile app or web browser and arrange the payment option by themselves. Prepaid subscriptions will gain popularity.
And Beenius can help operators adopt new business models to increase the customer base by reaching new user segments.
What is the development dilemma of operators in 2021? How could we help them with our products?
Our industry has made some significant steps during the past few years towards using more widely accepted protocols. This lowers the investment and operational costs. Operators who want to move forward and update their solutions need a partner with a deep understanding of the whole domain to design the optimal upgrade path, utilizing as many of the existing components as possible. Beenius conducted several replacement projects, and operators can benefit from our experience.
How did Covid –19 affect the industry?
The situation forced vendors to adopt new ways to acquire new customers and provide the solutions remotely. Many opportunities that emerged on tradeshows were lost, but some other appeared through new channels.
It forced operators to think about and implement new business models. Time spent in front of the TV increased, and operators answered by adding more content to the services.
Last but not least, users got spoiled with all the providers offering the video and audio content. Some content has even been offered for free as a means to keep people at home. That has set a high bar in terms of service pricing and quality.
Are you bringing something new to the market in 2021?
We introduced a completely new line of products, backed by an updated backend service to facilitate the necessary changes the operators must make to stay competitive.
Great focus has been given to Android TV, AOSP devices, and last but not least, we’re coming out with an update of the Linux client, which will extend the investment lifecycle to our existing customers.
Anything you would add to share?
The past year has given us a chance to identify and address new kinds of challenges. It will be followed by an exciting period of new inventions and solutions.
