BSkyB gets system bargain

BSkyB has saved £12m and two years' development time using automated software conversion techniques to update its airtime sales system.

The broadcaster said it decided on the update because its system, which manages the advertising revenues from more than 100 TV channels, had reached the end of its performance capabilities.

Dan Beckett, senior project manager at BSkyB, said that the company's component vendor no longer supported its old Unix-based platform so it turned to Telecom Media Networks, a division of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGEY).

Rather than develop a new airtime sales system, which would have taken about three years and cost £20m, BSkyB replaced its old platform technology with Hewlett Packard N-Class servers.

It then converted the legacy airtime sales system from an earlier generation programming language and database system to Oracle 8i database and 9i application server technology, and distributed it through a three-tier architecture.

"Having spoken to people that have been in the industry for a long time, we would have been looking at around 100 man-years of effort to build a new airtime sales system, which is how we calculated the cost and development time to be three years and £20m," explained Beckett.

CGEY introduced BSkyB, which implemented its original system seven years ago, to conversion technology developed by Australian company Execom.

Execom built a bespoke conversion engine tailored to the company's systems and CGEY implemented the technology alongside its new platform.

The project cost only £8m and was completed in less than a year following a short proof-of-concept exercise.

Beckett said that the new system future proofs the company's business capabilities and is more scalable, making it capable of handling potential expansion in the number of channels available to advertisers.

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