Vidiom flips the switch on interactive TV.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Hightech Coloradobiz - Vidiom Systems Corp.

AFTER A DECADE OF FALSE STARTS AND DEAD ENDS, INTERACTIVE TELEVISION looks like it's finally getting beyond mere strategic planning. Broomfield-based Vidiom Systems Corp.'s recent growth is one signpost of that progress.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Vidiom, a 60-employee interactive TV software-consulting firm, has been profitable every year since President/CEO Timothy Wahlers founded it 1997, but last year sales doubled, rising to about $8 million in 2003, up from $4.8 million in 2002.

Wahlers said Vidiom owes a good deal of its growth to the OpenCable Applications Platform--specifications regarding cable middleware developed at another Colorado company, CableLabs, in Louisville. The open-cable platform was created under FCC mandate to enable interactive television developers to design products that will run on any cable system in North America, paving the way for next-generation set-top boxes and flashy new applications.

In past interactive TV launch attempts, "The technology wasn't ready," Wahlers said. "A lot of conditions have (had) to come together."

Now it looks like they have: Vidiom's growth is directly tied to the rise of ITV at big cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner Cable. After upgrading their networks during the dot-com boom, operators are looking for a return on their sizable investment. Holding them back, however, have been inadequate set-top boxes that lack standardized embedded software.

Cable operators "are competing with the satellite industry, so they have to be able to use the infrastructure they've spent so much money on the best they can to attract new customers," explained Wahlers. "They're in the process of buying boxes and upgrading their networks to support the OpenCable standard." New boxes, he said, "will start to trickle out this year, and then come out significantly in 2005."

Wahlers was intimately involved in the drafting of the OpenCable Application Platform specs, serving as consulting director of OpenCable software to CableLabs in the late 1990s. That...