Cloud-enabled Edge Devices Create New Opportunities for Application Developers and Network Service Providers

Gary Gutknecht, Senior Vice President, Connected Home Division, Technicolor

Gary Gutknecht

Senior Vice President

Technicolor – Connected Home

When it comes to technology in general – and networking in particular – the forces of technology have pressed service providers and device manufacturers to bring more bandwidth and intelligence to the home. As a result, we have seen consumer expectations for easier and more intuitive access to content and services rise.

While there are many moving parts associated with meeting these demands -- at Technicolor – we believe that the relationship between cloud computing resources and edge devices – such as gateways – will have to be much tighter than it is today.

This is why Technicolor and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced an important collaboration to bring the power of cloud applications to edge devices in the home. For Technicolor, the announcement is in keeping with our overarching role as a "better together" company. Over the last 100 years Technicolor has:

• Collaborated with content creators across film, episodic, advertising as well as animation and games to create amazing experiences for audiences. Our projects have spanned the modern entertainment era – from bringing color to film in The Wizard of Oz, to applying visual effects, sound and color science to 70 percent of blockbuster movies around the world -- including the groundbreaking digital effects in this years’ award season contender, The Jungle Book.

• Partnered with network service providers – including mobile, cable and telco operators -- to improve consumer access to engaging content. On average, one million Technicolor set-top boxes and gateways are shipped to people’s homes worldwide…every week.
   
• Teamed up with consumer device manufacturers to deploy technology that ensures programs, games, movies – and more -- are presented on devices as they were actually intended to be seen by the artists who created them.

...A New Dynamic Between Cloud and Edge Devices

The collaboration between Technicolor and AWS taps into a new dynamic...a new relationship...that the cloud has with devices and consumers in the home. It builds a bridge between cloud and edge technology that will act as a force-multiplier for building new services throughout the home.

Some of these services are clear to us today— such as the ability to use conversational voice commands to configure network settings or diagnose technical problems. This will improve the user experience and reduce the cost of customer service. Other services will completely surprise us – and will very likely disrupt our economic assumptions about bringing broadband content and services to the home.

What is really exciting about the direction that Technicolor is pursuing with AWS is that it will explore a way to achieve this vision by:

• Harnessing AWS for home gateway applications – keeping in mind that Technicolor is the number one provider of innovative gateway technologies around the world;

• Leveraging the opportunities being created by AWS IoT and AWS Greengrass innovation;

• Integrating the Alexa Personal Assistant into Technicolor gateway products; and

• Incorporating Amazon’s Alpine System-on-chip into our new family of gateway products.

The collaboration introduces into the gateway environment the same level – and pace -- of innovation that we have come to expect in the cloud. In so doing, it creates a new canvas – and market – for thousands of developers all over the world.

We believe it will result in a bigger and more diverse community of interest that will:

• Accelerate access to ongoing innovation from a broad application development ecosystem that is incented to constantly provide new…meaningful…applications that will improve the lives of consumers;

• Offer new and more intuitive ways to access and enjoy those new applications; and

• Improve overall quality of service – and user experience – in the home.

For telco, cable and mobile operators, the integration of cloud computing resources into edge devices enables new services and business models. This “cloud-in-the-gateway” environment will offer service providers more flexibility and better cost control, while simultaneously addressing real issues of privacy by allowing consumers to have greater control over their own information.

...Breaking Down Siloes to Build Economic Opportunities

Until now, the world of application development has fallen into hard siloes that have not permitted a lot of effective cross-pollination between cloud and gateway resources. With this announcement, that will change.

Applications will be more portable, scalable and intuitive across cloud and gateway platforms. We are creating an environment in which the development community will have access to resources in the home and in the cloud.

The ability of consumers to live and interact with their connected home services in an easy and natural manner will result in a growing consumer appetite for applications, which will in turn create more opportunities for service providers and application developers to strengthen their relationships with consumers.

For more information about cloud-enabled edge devices, please email contactsales@technicolor.com.