22 December, Oslo, Norway — Appear, the global leader in media processing and delivery technology, today will announce that it is the recipient of an Innovation Norway grant of 18 MNOK. The funding will be used during the research and development phase of Appear’s NEO Series, a line of energy efficient, server-based products that combine Appear’s hardware pedigree with the utility of software-based technology.
Innovation Norway is the Norwegian Government’s most important platform for support of innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry. As the Norwegian government’s official trade representative abroad, Innovation Norway aims to assist Norwegian businesses to grow and find new markets. The initiative provides access to a broad business support system as well as financial means.
The live video distribution market continues to see software-based compression growing in popularity thanks to its low cost and flexibility. Spurred by the performance of modern CPUs becoming cheaper and more powerful, software-based transcoding has expanded beyond predominantly OTT applications to facilitate more live content applications. However, integrating, deploying and operating software on general hardware can be a complicated and time-consuming process for most operators, especially if clusters of individual servers supporting different functions are required.
The Innovation Norway funding will help Appear to solve this challenge. Supporting the research and development phase has enabled Appear to establish new technology for compression that has the lowest possible impact on the environment, while maintaining superior performance suitable for applications that can be deployed “on premise” and in the cloud.
The first solution in the NEO Series, NEO 10, combines the efficiencies and flexibility of software encoding installed on dedicated high-performance hardware. NEO 10 simplifies typical operational models that combine clusters of servers with different roles, into a stand-alone product with all prior management, transcoding and streaming functions fully integrated. Customers deploying NEO 10 do not require specialist knowledge, and the solution is therefore ready to go for a “plug and play” experience straight out of the box; no further software deployment, installation or integration needed.
Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO of Appear commented, “We are delighted to have been awarded this support from Innovation Norway. It demonstrates the importance of developing solutions in an increasingly ‘hybrid’ world, and the NEO Series combines our extensive experience in designing hardware solutions with the best that the world of software transcoding has to offer. As a result, our customers will benefit from the flexibility and low cost of software compression with the simplicity and performance of our dedicated hardware.”
Håkon Haugli, CEO of Innovation Norway says, “We are happy to support Appear as a forward-looking solution provider of media processing and delivery technology. One of our tasks is precisely to support Norwegian companies that want to invest and strengthen their position. Appear already has a significant international standing, which is now being further strengthened ».
About Innovation Norway
Innovation Norway is the Norwegian Government’s most important instrument for business innovation and development. The initiative provides access to a broad business support system that contributes to sustainable growth and exports for Norwegian businesses through capital and expertise. As the Norwegian government’s official trade representative abroad, Innovation Norway also aims to assist Norwegian businesses to find new markets for exports.
