COMMUNICATIONS AND ENTERTAINMENT
TELECOM PROVIDER AND INTERACTIVE MEDIA -
Background After researching their options, they chose to enter the Video-on-Demand (VOD) and Interactive TV market. Not only would this create new revenues for the company, it would also provide a key added value for hotels in the highly competitive hospitality market and add revenue streams for the hotel. The company contracted an interactive media company in New York to provide the complete set-top box (STB) and entertainment portal solution. With this, they would be able to deliver a fully customized, integrated digital interactive on-demand media experience that would be popular with both travelers and leading hotels. The Interactive Media company needed a partner able to deliver on this new business case and build a scalable, robust digital media and VOD system. The system had to aggregate content from various sources (movie studios, content providers, Internet, and others) and present it in an optimized fashion on a TV. The VOD portal was required to:
The Challenge The Solution
The entire system is remotely administered by a wireless RIM/Palm device, and communication between the hotel domain and central domain is done through a combination of IBM WebSphere MQ-Series (for financial and control transactions), and Web-Services for real-time query applications such as advertising, hotel mapping, and survey data.
The Results The system is in use at the Mandarin Oriental, the 3,000 room Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, Park Hyatt, Starwood Hotels (Sheraton, Westin, W, and others), and other high end chains/properties. The product and service is deemed to be a tremendous success in the industry, and was showcased at several Hospitality Technology Shows at Chicago, Orlando, and Dallas.
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