Ideal Group: Powering the Entertainment Industry through IBM

The entertainment industry today is at its pinnacle with the influence of newer technology trends. Its popularity amongst people worldwide has enabled the entertainment industry to grow in all parts of the globe. The entertainment and media industry in the Asia Pacific in particular is going through a major overhaul that has largely transformed the way the audience perceive their content. Catering entertainment to a region that is home to more than half of the world’s population is a task of insurmountable odds. Irish company Ideal group for over two and a half decades has been at the forefront of rendering IT solutions to the entertainment industry in the Asia Pacific. Conceived in 1989, Ideal Group started operations in Hong Kong in 1991, which helped establish its presence as a provider of IT solutions in the Asia Pacific. Since inception Ideal Group has worked with some of the biggest names in Rock and Roll which included U2, Rolling Stones and Europe. Their initial projects involved building recording studios for these bands. It was by no co-incidence that a couple of years later, the company found itself catering to the needs of major Asian broadcasters and production houses who at the time were transitioning from analogue to digital technology. Ideal Group was paramount in facilitating this transition, thereby establishing itself as the leading systems integration service provider.

Today enterprises face several challenges particularly on the lines of building and maintaining their video service infrastructure and workflows owing to the complexities involved in multiple vendor solutions which often require integration of legacy systems.

Ideal Group’s system integration expertise coupled with its cloud services which further extends to total managed services have aided such enterprises in finding a way around this issue and enabled them to focus on their core competencies that ultimately drive their targeted business results. Ideal Group’s system integration expertise coupled with its cloud services which further extends to total managed services have aided such enterprises in finding a way around this issue and enabled them to focus on their core competencies that ultimately drive their targeted business results. Ideal also provides a gateway to companies seeking to expand into the APAC market, through the unique position it has established here.“Our geographic footprint includes 11 offices in 9 countries within APAC and with over 25 years of operation in the region, we are well versed in local and regional business customs,” elaborates Fintan Mc Kiernan, CEO, Ideal Group.

IBM’s announcement this year for the creation of IBM Cloud Video services to enhance their substantial organic video capabilities with the consecutive acquisition of Softlayer, Aspera, Cleversafe, Clearleap and most recently streaming video service Ustream, has furthered given the APAC market further prospects for broadening their horizons in technology. Therefore for IBM it is prudent to establish strong partnership with regional firms that posses solid products, systems and solutions integration capabilities whose growth strategy is aligned with its own. For this Ideal Group’s portfolio fits the card perfectly and such a partnership would also add value in the SI field where the Ideal group intends to leverage the content logistics capabilities of its service arm Yapku to deliver IBM cloud and video services.

Ideal’s new white label online video hosting and OTT which is still under development is designed to support multiple applications running from On Demand VOD, to Linear Channel Playout, to Enterprise “YouTube on Steroids” and will run on the IBM platform largely distinguishing it from other platforms meant for that purpose.