SoftAtHome Operating Platform
SoftAtHome Operating Platform is an open, ubiquitous and manageable off-the-shelf software solution that enables Service Providers to increase revenues, customer reach and retention through the operation and deployment of new and innovative applications for the Digital Home.
Today, the Digital Home market is gathering pace but there are still some hurdles that limit its complete adoption by the mass market. Some of the issues include:
- Lack of compelling applications and services, as 3rd party innovation is difficult to integrate on proprietary home devices already deployed,
- Poor ease of use of applications and services which don’t share the same behavior on devices from different vendors,
- Unpredictable Quality of Services with lack of third party Service Level Agreement,
- Lack of real two-way interactivity between the end user’s network and the service provider’s network,
- Lack of true convergence among devices, as integration is still reliant upon the end user.
Service Providers are strategically positioned to provide solutions to those challenges and deliver services for the Digital Home. Not only do they manage access to the network and hence can offer different levels of SLA for each service, but can also provide always-on-devices with simple and reliable user experience. Moreover, they have established end user relationships through billing and sales support.
SoftAtHome Operating Platform enables Service Providers to address these opportunities by moving from a proprietary single operator solution towards an open, ubiquitous and manageable platform. Using this platform, developers can deliver applications ranging from communication, entertainment and content sharing to home automation and health management.
The Home Operating Platform runs across multiple devices including Home Gateways, Set Top Boxes and Network Attached Servers. It also enables PCs, Mobile Phones, PDAs and other devices to participate in a SoftAtHome-enabled home environment. With the SoftAtHome Operating Platform, applications can be physically distributed across different devices to optimize their use while delivering a homogeneous and richer experience to consumers.
Building blocks of the SoftAtHome Operating Platform are deployed today in more than 6 million Home Gateways and 1 million Set Top Boxes on the Orange network across Europe.
Open
SoftAtHome Operating Platform provides a complete set of standard APIs available in native C, JavaScript/HTML or ActionScript/Flash to enable 3rd party developers or Service Providers to create innovative applications. It comes with an SDK that integrates with industry standard development environments including Eclipse and Adobe Flash CS3. In addition to 3rd party applications, SoftAtHome delivers its own SoftAtHome-branded applications to help foster the adoption of its platform and provide out-of-the-box must-have applications to end users.
Ubiquitous
The APIs provide access to a set of Platform Services that are delivered as building blocks to create new applications. As a result the SoftAtHome Hardware Abstraction Layer, Platform Services are independent from the hardware and share a common implementation across different hardware and chipsets. Platform Services enable communication and interactivity; sharing and accessing content; optimizing and securing user experience and management. Those services are available across a large spectrum of devices, including Home Gateways and Set Top Boxes. Additional platforms and devices will be available soon.
Manageable
SoftAtHome Operating Platform provides a consistent and standard environment for provisioning new services, upgrading applications and firmware, and monitoring services and quality. Manageability of home devices is a key opportunity for Service Providers as they can leverage their expertise and existing network infrastructure to differentiate their offering from other players in the Digital Home market.
