Rovi Readies Cloud Services, Developers Program

As Rovi prepares to extend the reach of TotalGuide interactive program guide (IPG) in CE products, it’s readying a cloud-based services developer program that may signal a gradual move away from embedded software, company officials told us.

The cloud services will concentrate at first on internally developed Apple iPhone and iPad video and music metadata applications that draw from Rovi’s acquisitions of All Media Guide and Muze. But Rovi also will release a software developer kit to enable software companies to create applications for the cloud services, Rovi Chief Evangelist Richard Bullwinkle told us. The cloud-based strategy will allow Rovi partners access to metadata that provides detailed information regarding movies and music without having to embed it in products, Bullwinkle said. Among the music services using Rovi’s non-cloud metadata are Pandora, Slacker and Spotify. Rovi’s initial applications are 2 MB files.

The new approach will allow software companies to “develop the full app, and when they decide to hang up a shingle and make money, they can call up and say, ‘How much does this cost?'” Bullwinkle said. “That way small developers can test out things without having to go through the big legal process. That allows us to reach out to a lot more people and gives us a much broader reach for developers than we have typically had in the past."

Under the new strategy, Rovi customers will have access to its databases of music and video information without having to embed it in a product. Rovi will maintain the servers and cloud to provide data and will distribute it “across the globe so it can be grabbed by a local source,” Bullwinkle said. It will enable services like Pandora and Slacker to continue developing their recommendation engines, while turning over to Rovi the “expensive section” of the process -- sorting metadata and extending it to customers, Bullwinkle said. Samsung deployed parts of TotalGuide in LCD TVs in the fall. And the use of metadata and cloud services will likely increase in light of Rovi’s proposed acquisition of Sonic Solutions and its RoxioNow video download platform.

The push into cloud-based services also could signal a gradual change in the way TotalGuide is deployed, Bullwinkle said. TotalGuide, expected to be in 10 million to 15 million CE products this year, will have access to the new services and may eventually reside in a cloud, Bullwinkle said. While Rovi developed TotalGuide as an all-encompassing IPG that would be embedded in products, it found that partners were most interested in using the grid guide and metadata in a customized interface, Bullwinkle said.

"Today TotalGuide is an embedded piece of software and widget, and what we really would like to have is a browser where we can render any type of service that a CE manufacturer and us agree is right for the customers,” Bullwinkle said. “Rather than the really slow process of updating embedded software and the relatively slow process of updating an app, we would like to render whatever we think is the cool thing to do."

While Rovi engineering efforts are “moving in the direction” of making TotalGuide a cloud-based offering, “I can’t say when CE manufacturers will adopt” that approach, Bullwinkle said. Shifting the IPG to a cloud would reduce the memory that TVs need to house it.

"If they put in just a really good browser, we could do some amazing things for them in the cloud and it’s a matter of time,” Bullwinkle said. The cloud strategy also will further Rovi’s efforts to build an advertising business that was projected to generate $20 million in revenue in 2010, company officials said.

Cable operators may be slower to adopt a cloud-based solution for Rovi’s Passport IPG. While operators are expected to start trials with TotalGuide this fall, it will be “a few years” before Passport is replaced, Bullwinkle said. Rovi will “evolve Passport as far as we can” and when operators replace set-top boxes, suggest that TotalGuide be deployed, he said.

"At some point, I start to wonder what the purpose of a set-top box is,” Bullwinkle said. “The massive conditional access system for cable operators is overly complex, and a username and password is the only thing a consumer wants to use,” he said.