Path wasn’t easy though
Developing the TveeBoX from ground up—including hardware design, testing, validation, operating system porting, driver development and bug fixing, development of multimedia and IPTV middleware, user interfaces and applications—wasn’t a cakewalk. A development team of over 18 engineers spent more than three years to build this feature-rich and powerful convergent STB platform. They surpassed multiple challenges en route, like the lack of a manufacturing and sourcing ecosystem and support from processor companies.
“It is quite a financial drain getting prototypes developed in India. Further, we were not getting support from processor companies. Today, we are forced to look towards China for mass manufacturing due to reasons of cost-effectiveness. Thereafter, keeping the technology minds working at NextBiT aspired was also a challenge,” recalls Borker.
The road ahead!
NextBiT has begun mass manufacturing of two models. It is working directly with operators and, over the next 18 months, plans to enter the open STB market for hybrid digital cable and IP services.
Looking ahead, NextBiT plans to introduce the server gaming concept on the TveeBoX. It is also following the developments in the open source community and evaluating how best it can use them to enhance the user experience.
“Over a period of time, when we have substantial user base, we hope to open up our development APIs to allow a more open method of adding user-generated features and applications to our devices,” says Borker.
Alongside, it is in talks for funding of another product expected to be launched in August.
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The author is a business correspondent at EFY Bengaluru
