Information Today
Volume 17, Issue 10 • November 2000
Qpass Teams with Virage for Video-Content Solution

Qpass, a provider of digital commerce services, and Virage, Inc. (http://www.virage.com), a provider of software products and application services for producing video on the Internet, have announced an agreement that will supply video-content owners with a fully outsourced solution for the management, distribution, and sale of streaming-video content online.

Qpass and Virage will work together to ensure the interoperability of the Qpass Digital Commerce Service and the Virage Internet Video Application Platform, and will jointly market the integrated solution. The integration of the two platforms offers media customers a complete solution for publishing, packaging, distributing, and monetizing video on the Internet. According to the companies, this end-to-end solution for video commerce on the Internet takes advantage of the built-in extensibility of both the Virage platform and the Qpass service.

The Qpass Digital Commerce Service, a cross-site transactional platform for the marketing, sale, and distribution of digital content on the Internet, enables the sale of premium, pay-per-use, and subscription content online. Qpass provides the commerce infrastructure for a number of media companies on the Web, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, and Factiva.

Virage’s Internet Video Application Platform supports large-scale deployment of streaming video and is currently used by more than 150 customers across the media and entertainment, enterprise, education, and government markets. Virage’s cross-platform Internet video solutions begin with the Virage SmartEncode process, which simultaneously encodes and indexes video using the VideoLogger software. The Virage platform supports dynamic publishing, management, syndication, and controlled distribution of video content on the Internet and corporate intranets, and enables video for critical Internet applications, such as personalization, search, community-building, online learning, and e-commerce.

“Our media customers need a reliable, scalable solution that will enable them to generate new revenue from their valuable video assets,” said Carlos Montalvo, vice president of marketing for Virage. “Qpass’ digital commerce platform, which includes transaction support, credit card processing, billing and remittance, end-user registration, and account management, is an excellent complement to our video platform. The combined solution provides a straightforward way for our customers to maximize the economic value of their content using the Internet.”

“The untapped revenue opportunities represented by streaming media on the Internet today and broadband tomorrow are enormous,” said Kevin Brown, Qpass’ senior vice president of business development. “Virage’s breakthrough system unlocks the value of video content by enabling it for electronic commerce in many different ways. Combining Virage-enabled video with the Qpass Digital Commerce Service allows us to provide media companies with a turnkey solution for generating real revenue from their video content.”

Source: Qpass, Seattle, 206/447-6000; http://www.qpass.com.


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