ES3 announced its new CONNECT Program at CES 2013 in a series of customer and partner closed sessions. The company continued to enjoy significant growth in 2012 in terms of revenue, operator partners, applications, platforms deployed, and ultimately consumers reached. CONNECT is a holistic, company-wide program designed to ensure ES3’s TV applications continue to connect, and engage more deeply, with their intended audiences.

“This is a very exciting time for ES3,” said Douglas Edwards, CEO. “We wanted to put together a program vision that focuses on delivering a new Consumer TV entertainment experience, providing an edge to our TV Operator customers, assisting Broadcasters and Content providers to deliver engaging experiences via digital over-the-top (OTT) content, and finally, ensuring that ES3 continues to innovate and adapt to the new platforms and Devices our customers are using.”

The end user entertainment experience is the primary focus in the ES3 product development strategy. AppChannels use an innovative, intuitive interface for Consumers to discover and enjoy OTT and interactive application content on the TV. ES3 revealed their new AppChannels program to customers and content partners at CES.

Under the CONNECT program vision, ES3 also launched its new “Fast Track” Delivery Program designed to accelerate the deployment of its Mediaroom TV applications to Operators.

In 2012, major Broadcasters and Content owners approached ES3 requesting their own IPTV applications. To meet the demand for enhanced TV experiences, ES3 developed and recently launched their eTV App Framework (the e stands for “enhanced”). The eTV Framework is an interactive broadcast application that assists with discovery and subscription sales by connecting linear broadcast with contextual information, OTT video, integrated social media and extended programming features.

ES3’s Device program (Companion, nScreen and Connected TV) extends TV app interfaces and content to all devices, inside and outside the home. In collaboration with leading OTT video delivery company Azuki Systems, an nScreen demonstration of the TumbleBooks TV application showed seamless delivery of rich content and interactivity from the popular TV app to tablets. These features allow the user to maintain their session across any smart device, with bookmarking and resume capabilities.

All TV app demonstrations used beautifully designed TV remotes from ruwido, a leading provider of input devices and interaction mechanisms. In a statement from ruwido’s CEO, Ferdinand Maier, he explains, “The remote control is an integral centerpiece of the living room experience and ruwido specializes in innovative design, enhanced technology and scientific research to enable intuitive navigation and a superior user experience.” ES3 and ruwido are exploring new ways to innovate on TV interaction hardware and software to create a more harmonized user experience.

About ES3™

ES3 is an award-winning TV application provider with a series of premium content, social and utility-based interactive TV applications delivered on the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform for Service Operators, globally.