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News
and Announcements
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| Highwinds
Teams with Digital Rapids and
Knack Networks to Create Advanced
IPTV Solutions for Professional
Media Firms |
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Highwinds
Network Group, Inc., a multi-platform
IP services and content distribution
provider, today announced it is
partnering with Digital Rapids
Corporation and Knack Networks
to create advanced IPTV solutions
for the vast market of professional
media companies worldwide -- including
traditional cable and direct-to-home
distribution companies, broadcasters,
film and television studios and
producers, as well as new-generation
Internet media companies. The
solutions handle both live and
on-demand channels of video delivery
direct to the home or office utilizing
Highwinds' RollingThunder(TM:
103.16, +2.32, +2.30%) network.
Highwinds will collaborate with
Digital Rapids and Knack Networks
to develop and market complete,
end-to-end, fully managed video
distribution solutions that leverage
the three companies' expertise
in their respective domains. The
turnkey offerings resulting from
the companies' partnership will
integrate:
-- Highwinds'
content delivery network (CDN)
infrastructure and associated
technologies, including its industry-leading
real-time analytics
facility.
-- Digital Rapids' highly scalable
hardware and software solutions
formedia capture, encoding, transcoding,
protection, streaming and
delivery.
-- Knack Networks' universal interface
platform which enables professional
media companies to source, store,
protect, monetize, manage and
distribute IPTV programming from
the vast array of traditional
and emerging channels, while insulating
them from the complexities and
risks of changing technology.
Highwinds will showcase its content
delivery solutions tapping Digital
Rapids and Knack Networks technologies
in its exhibit -- Booth #107 --
at IPTV World Forum, March 12-14
in London. Beta site implementations
of these offerings will begin
at Highwinds and Knack Networks
customer sites in April.
Highwinds also
announced today it has closed
a $55 million round of equity
financing led by General Catalyst
Partners and Alta Communications.
The financing will fund the infrastructure
build-out of Highwinds' RollingThunder
network, including a content delivery
network offering which the company
is unveiling at IPTV World Forum.
Highwinds' StrikeTracker dashboard
provides important real-time analytics
capability
An important value-add in the
integrated solutions from Highwinds,
Digital Rapids and Knack Networks
is provided by the real-time analytics
technology in Highwinds' StrikeTracker(TM:
103.16, +2.32, +2.30%) user console.
The StrikeTracker dashboard graphically
displays all pertinent information
for tracking content -- delivery
rates, number of hits on specific
files, etc. Geographic tracking
of requests allows users to drill
down into geographic regions and
find out how their content is
doing in different areas of the
world. Typically, within 30 seconds
of the first delivery of a file
or media stream, the dashboard
will begin to show usage data
in its graphs.
"Highwinds'
unique real-time analytics and
reporting capabilities are a driving
factor in our partnership with
them," said Brick Eksten,
president of Digital Rapids Corporation.
"The metrics from the Highwinds
dashboard support our goal of
providing media companies with
comprehensive end-to-end global
broadcasting workflows, enabling
a more complete solution for our
customers."
As a Highwinds
reseller partner integrating Digital
Rapids solutions, Knack Networks
will have an advanced 'industrial
scale' content delivery network
for reaching its professional
media customers. The first phase
of Knack's network will be deployed
in 12 major market areas in the
Americas, with the capacity to
deliver standard resolution live
television to up to 250,000 simultaneous
viewers. This will be supported
by two IPTV headends from Digital
Rapids providing a capacity to
ingest 600 live television channels,
and by Highwinds' 800 Gbps RollingThunder
network and direct peering connections
to over 700 ISPs and service networks
in North America and Europe. Knack's
content delivery will be monitored
24/7 by two Highwinds Network
Operation Centers.
"The synergies
of this partnership will deliver
IPTV solutions whose performance
and scalability are unmatched
in the industry," said Mark
Hayes, VP of Marketing and Business
Development at Highwinds. "What's
more, the tight integration we
are creating with Digital Rapids
and Knack Networks will support
instant account provisioning,
giving professional media companies
the agility to get up and running
with their video content distribution
in minutes, not days or weeks."
Highwinds' technology leadership
Highwinds is a multi-platform
IP services and content distribution
provider. The Highwinds RollingThunder
network was purpose-built in 2007
for a modern, high-change, media
object hosting environment. The
RollingThunder network currently
comprises 21 POPs spanning two
continents, a large private peering
infrastructure, and an 800 Gbps
IP network and high-capacity backbone
consisting of multiple redundant
10 Gbps links.
Internet content
delivery is a core service that
runs on the RollingThunder network.
The Highwinds CDN includes nearly
half a terabit of CDN server capacity
distributed geographically in
North America and Europe and has
worldwide delivery capabilities.
Highwinds' CDN serves content
in all the leading industry formats
-- Windows Media Server, Adobe
Flash Streaming Server, and HTTP
downloads.
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Press
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Downloadable media resources and identity
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