Re Chunghwa Licence Expansion

25 Jan 2005 07:01

Emblaze Ltd25 January 2005 Chunghwa Telecom Purchases Licenses from Orca Interactive to Expand Its Commercial IPTV Service to 40,000 Subscribers Orca's RiGHTvTM Middleware Scales To Accommodate Additional 10,000 Subscribers In One Of The World's Largest IPTV Deployments RA'ANANA, Israel - January 25, 2005 - Emblaze Ltd (LSE: BLZ) announces that itsGroup company, Orca Interactive (LSE: ORCA), a global leader in the IPTV market,today announces that Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), the largest operator of domesticand international telecom services with approximately three million ADSLsubscribers in Taiwan, has purchased an additional 10,000 licenses of Orca'sRiGHTvTM IPTV middleware to accommodate growth in one of the world's largestmultimedia on demand (MOD) deployments over telephone lines. Orca Interactive has partnered with leading IPTV companies to provide anend-to-end IPTV solution for CHT since its initial rollout. This is thesecond expansion requested from Orca within less than six months, reflectingRiGHTv's proven success in attracting new subscribers and generating revenuesfor CHT. This brings the total number of Orca middleware licenses at CHT to40,000. With subscriber growth expected to reach 1.5 million users within five years,the Telco-grade RiGHTv solution from Orca assures high-availability andcost-effective scalability, enabling CHT to address this fast growing, emergingmarket. "Orca is honored to empower CHT with one of the largest IPTV solutionsglobally," said Alon Laor, VP, Worldwide Sales & Professional Services of OrcaInteractive. "Today, no other commercial IPTV middleware is serving a subscriberbase of this magnitude. Following Orca's latest record-breaking benchmark testof 500,000 users with HP - positioning RiGHTv as the leading Telco-grademiddleware platform in the IPTV industry - we are confident we will continue tosupport CHT with their striking success."Eli Reifman, Chief Executive of Emblaze Ltd, said: "CHT is one of the mostprogressive companies in deployment of IPTV services. One of Orca's keycompetitive advantage is its ability to quickly scale up when required by thetelecom operator. We have a long relationship with CHT and look forward tohelping them achieve their goals in deploying multimedia on demand in thefuture."Orca's open-architecture IPTV middleware is integrated with Pace 4000 and IP420set-top boxes, Alcatel Open Video server, Widevine security solution, and CHT'sbilling and CRM systems. A variety of services including broadcast TV, video ondemand, and games on demand is offered, providing CHT with an end-to-endsolution combined of best of breed components. Enquiries: Emblaze LtdDoron Cohen, Hagit Gal + 972 9 7699831 / 339Corfin CommunicationsHarry Chathli, Neil Thapar + 44 207 645 2990Shared ValueAlex Dee +44 20 7321 5013 Notes to Editor About The Emblaze Group (Emblaze LTD)Emblaze Ltd. is a group of companies sharing a common mission to provide Telecomoperators with technologies, products and solutions for next generationservices: Emblaze Mobile, a new breed in handsets design and manufacturing;Adamind, a global leader in content adaptation (transcoding) for wirelessoperators; Emblaze Defense, a provider of wireless and IP video solutions formilitary and homeland security markets and Orca Interactive (LSE: ORCA),provider of Interactive Television IPTV middleware for Video On Demand (VOD) andbroadcast services, aimed at Telecom, cable and xDSL operators Emblaze Group is traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: BLZ) since 1996 andhas offices in the United States, United Kingdom, China, Korea and Israel.www.emblaze.com About Orca InteractiveOrca Interactive (LSE:ORCA), an Emblaze Group company (LSE: BLZ) and a leadingprovider of IPTV middleware solutions to enable xDSL and FTTx operators to offerenhanced entertainment services such as broadcast TV, video-on-demand andinteractive services. Our applications deliver compelling and differentiatedservices to maximize the revenue stream of the operators. Orca's user-friendly,end-to-end applications enable delivery and management of VOD, TV channels, EPG,NVOD, Pay-Per-View and e-commerce for related merchandise. Orca Interactive hasformed strategic partnerships with Amino, BitBand, GooMe, ECI, HP, Kreatel,Microsoft, nCUBE, NDS, Nokia, Nortel Networks, Optibase, Pace, Samsung,SeaChange and more. www.orcainteractive.com. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange