Suspicions about Concurrent Computer
by Martino Mingione

When it comes to cable company proprietary VOD servers, there are only three companies to note: Seachange, nCUBE (now CCOR), and Concurrent Computers. Their market share ranking is in that same order. Recently, CCOR replaced the Concurrent VOD equipment which Charter's St. Louis system. Does this tell us anything important? It is rumored that Concurrent failed to integrate its equipment with the Digeo/Moxi-based Motorola Broadband Media Centers which Charter is offering in St. Louis. I read in a recent interview with ITVT, Concurrent CEO, Gary Trimm, denied this saying:

"We were, in fact, successful in integrating with the Moxi-Motorola platform. It was just very difficult, because Charter doesn't have a lab to test things in, so we had to test it in a live system."

MSO's rarely have test labs for any of their technology products, something I know first hand. That #4 Charter (the MSO with the weakest financials of the larger cable companies) would invest in test labs is even more problematic. It makes me suspect about Concurrent’s future if it is depending upon customer investment into testing to be successful.

Elsewhere in the article he told ITVT that the decision to redeploy the equipment had more to do with Charter's regionalization strategy than with any integration difficulties the companies experienced: "

"This is not a switch-out of our product just because they didn't like it. They're regionalizing their vendors, so that most of the Concurrent-powered systems are in one part of the country and most of the nCUBE or C-COR systems are in another part of the country. One practical reason for doing this is that you will have more centralization -- so you can have a regional library of video serving each region."

While the logic behind this is undeniable because 'regionalization' does force some standardization in the deployment of vendors, it too is a curious statement. Saint Louis is not just any Charter location - it is Charter Communication's flagship location and also where Charter's headquarters is located. If memory serves me right, Charter considers St. Louis a region all by itself. Therefore, it would mean that Concurrent lost the entire region!

Some believe that there is not much of a future for proprietary VOD servers as cheaper off-the-shelf equipment can now do the job. My reading of the tea leaves: look for Concurrent to be making some bolder moves and/or acquisitions this year.