Last year, Dave Cole, president of Toronto-based software manufacturer Specialty Data Systems, attended NAB for the first time with a small booth in a low-traffic area to get an idea of whether his company's SDS eBroadcast system would be of interest to the market. This year he's going back with a larger booth.

The SDS eBroadcast system is a broadcasting management software package that offers a unifying solution among the various departments at a TV station, linking sales, traffic, programming, operations and accounting with a realtime, two-way data flow. It manages programming inventory, alerts sales reps of scheduling changes, keeps track of invoices, and prepares appropriate data for CRTC reports, among other features.

"Last year was kind of a feeler," says Cole of the 2005 Vegas trip. "We want to come away from this NAB with installations of our unified system in the U.S. market and establish ourselves there as a leading system."

SDS counts CanWest Global, Bell ExpressVu, Alliance Atlantis, CTS and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment among its national client base of about 70 companies. It has dipped its toe in the U.S., with World Wrestling Entertainment and Impulse Media Sales in New York purchasing its system.

Cole says competing in the U.S. with broadcaster solutions companies - including Harris Corporation, which acquired solutions company Encoda Systems in 2004, and VCI, which has Canadian outfits CHUM and ROBTv as clients - has been a long-term goal for SDS.

"We've been competing with the U.S. from day one here in Canada," says Cole. "[U.S.-based companies] provided the legacy systems here that we've had to compete against and win business from. It is the same competitors south of the border."

www.sds.ca