Montreal graphics company seeks expansion beyond broadcast to Internet

Vertigo Software Technologies Inc is actively negotiating with application software providers (ASPs), digital TV applicants and others to migrate its content management software onto PDAs, cell phones and the web. The move coincides with a recent decision by Telesystem Group Inc, both Montreal-based companies, to invest US$11.5 million in the four-year-old firm. Vertigo has made a name for itself south of the border providing both design work and the software to manage on-air 3D graphics for large-scale television broadcasters, and for live events including the Super Bowl. It also scored a contract recently to re-do and manage the on-air graphics for MSNBC which is revamping its entire on-air look. With Telesystem now becoming a minority owner in the company, Vertigo is promising the same service for graphics regardless of technology platform. For content providers, it could mean a single source to manage the output of information to a multitude of devices. That includes dozens of applicants for new specialty digital television applicants now appearing before the Canadian Radio-television and Tele-communications Commission. "(Telesystem are) really helping us out from a strategic point of view," says Vertigo VP Maria Porco. "A lot of what we do requires that we partner with other companies for ultimate delivery. We’re initially partnering and talking to and working with a lot of the companies involved with the Telesystem family. (They are) expanding beyond wireless to content, into the Internet space, and we fit very well in that new model because we are content management and we are across media." Telesystem’s holdings include Microcell Telecommunications Inc (a digital cellular company), Look Communications Inc (a digital TV company and ISP), and Public Technologies Multimédia (a web-based developer of virtual reality applications). Vertigo is a privately held company founded in 1996 by David Wilkins, a former employee of Discreet Logic Inc. Discreet continues to manufacture high-end character generators for television graphics, and Wilkins formed Vertigo as a supplier of software to run and control the graphics. The company has since grown to 24, and has supplied its technology to ABC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CNBC and NBC including for this fall’s U.S. presidential election coverage on NBC. Over time, Vertigo has evolved beyond supplying the software to creating original graphics as a digital studio based on concepts developed by the networks. The company is currently in talks to expand its markets beyond traditional broadcasting, and Porco says a contract with at least one wireless platform applications developer is nearly finalized. She hints that the deal may revolve around providing U.S. elections results to handheld devices, but that any pilot project of that sort would only be tentative. In any such implementation, Vertigo’s software would merge graphics and data for delivery to the user. Porco says the company has to catch the convergence wave as broadcasters, the Internet and other platforms merge and proliferate. "How do you manage that convergence?" she asks. "How do you actually make something work across different media? Instead of having five different teams who re-purpose (data for) five different systems, we offer a platform that let’s you do that across media." Vertigo is one of three companies since late August to receive an investment from Telesystem, which is moving its Internet strategy beyond wireline and wireless pipes. It has also invested in Los Angeles-based POPcast Inc and iPerceptions Inc of New York. Iperceptions is an ASP and POPcast builds self-serve webcasting solutions. As another story in this issue explores, Telesystem subsidiary Look Communications Inc has also launched a new streaming content portal site called LookTVi.

Montreal graphics company seeks expansion beyond broadcast to Internet

News | 09/06/2000 4:00 am EDT

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