Ross Video is spending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to develop a full suite of cloud-based video-production software as it hopes to generate new revenue streams in anticipation of going public by 2025.
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Ross Video is spending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to develop a full suite of cloud-based video-production software as it hopes to generate new revenue streams in anticipation of going public by 2025.
The Ottawa-based manufacturer said Friday it has received a $49-million investment from the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund to help finance its ambitious plan to build a hybrid cloud event-production platform.
Ross Video is investing a total of $236 million in the long-term project informally dubbed “Ross 365” in a nod to Microsoft’s family of cloud-based services, known as Microsoft 365.
CEO David Ross said that just as Microsoft provides desktop and cloud-based versions of applications such as Excel and Word, broadcasters and other Ross Video clients that now produce content in physical studios using on-premise hardware and software will soon be able to quickly set up virtual production studios with cloud-based switching, editing and other production equipment.
“In 15 minutes, you’re up and running covering the event,” he explained, adding that users will have the option to subscribe to the software or rent it on an as-needed basis.
Ross said the company has already begun migrating its technology to the cloud in response to rising market demand for virtual production services.
Ross Video’s revenues have been growing at an impressive annual rate of 17 per cent for the past three decades. Its CEO and majority shareholder said bolstering its cloud offerings will help the firm stay a step ahead of the competition as it moves closer to $500 million in annual sales and lays the groundwork for an initial public offering that’s expected to happen in the next couple of years.
“How do you continue to grow at 17 per cent a year is one of the ways we like to think about this,” Ross said. “If we see that the market is fragmenting in yet another new way, which is hardware versus software, then we want to be able to be playing in both sides.”
