As the media industry gears up for IBC 2025 in Amsterdam this September, a crucial theme is emerging: collaborative solutions are vital to address the industry's challenges. Technology vendors and leaders agree that IBC’s value extends beyond product showcases; it’s a critical platform for face-to-face discussions promoting open standards and collaborative frameworks.

Interoperability is a major focus, with vendors highlighting initiatives to overcome vendor lock-in. The Media Exchange Layer (MXL) initiative is gaining traction as a potential solution for integration challenges in virtualized environments. “As a contributor to the budding Media Exchange Layer initiative, Lawo is especially keen to learn how this approach is received by broadcasters who start feeling the pinch,” said Chris Scheck, head of marketing content at Lawo. Scheck further explained, “The promise of MXL is that users will be able to avoid vendor lock-in on generic servers where processing apps from different vendors not only run side by side, but also exchange data via a so-called shared memory layer, to avoid latency issues.”

Miroslav Jeras, Pebble’s CTO, highlighted the significance of such standards: “There has been a brake on the adoption of wider software infrastructures and the adoption of the cloud: the lack of open standards for interoperability.” He added, “Initiatives like MXL should enable system architects to build multi-vendor platforms in virtualized environments without the need for bespoke integration work.”

The transition to IP-based workflows remains a key trend, but requires industry-wide coordination. John Henkel, product marketing director at Netgear AV, noted, “In the next five years, I believe that we will see the full embrace of IP in the broadcast and Pro AV worlds. I think we will see a mix of standards and protocols being adopted, depending on applications, from ST 2110 and IPMX to NDI and Dante.”

Ian Wagdin, VP tech and innovation at Appear, sees IBC 2025 as a turning point: “IBC2025 promises to be a pivotal moment for aligning around a more open, software-centric broadcast future. As an industry, the priority should be on integration over isolation: developing vendor-agnostic solutions, embracing open standards, and designing for observability, orchestration, and security from the ground up.”

Sid Stanley, managing director at Calrec, emphasized the value of in-person interaction: “The conversations the industry needs to prioritise is how to cost-effectively unlock efficient, agile and sustainable workflows whilst delivering premium content at scale. These conversations are more productive when we meet with customers face-to-face. IBC gives us the opportunity to listen, explore and to understand what our customers need to be successful.”

The networking aspect extends to vendor partnerships. Henkel noted, “Being able to meet with our existing partners and build new relationships is key for us — we have nearly 500 manufacturing partners now, many of whom use our switches and access points themselves, and more than 100 who will be at IBC.”

Jeras advocated for formal certification programs: “As an industry, we have to push for interoperability certification programs, like the ones we saw in the early days of on-prem IP adoption. We will all benefit when broadcasters can freely choose the best option for each function — whether it’s automation, graphics, or encoding — and know that all of them will work seamlessly together through agreed standards like MXL, rather than being locked into one supplier.” He added, “The significance is not just in the reduction in cost, but in the speed to deliver systems without compromising on quality or functionality.”

Aaron Kroger, director of product marketing and communications at Dalet, highlighted the need for industry evolution: “I am looking forward to having open conversations with customers and other vendors about how we need to evolve as an industry. We are seeing big shifts in consumption trends, increased economic pressure, and a constant stream of new innovations, which all lead to the need for rapid change which is not the historic norm for this industry.” He also noted, “Our consumers are outpacing us as an industry and we need to come together as a whole as discuss how we will address this.”

Chris Evans, head of knowledge and insight at IABM, stressed the importance of leadership: “In this environment, we should be discussing how excellence in leadership is vital for our industry to not only successfully navigate change but set a path for a sustainable future.”

Noëlle Prat, sales and marketing director at BCE, emphasized the importance of platformization: “Platformization of operations: vendors exposing orchestration, connectors, usage analytics and support as a unified service layer. This enables faster launches, measurable cost control, and avoids lock-in through open, API-first approaches.”

Wagdin stressed the importance of practical implementation: “We’re most excited about showcasing how these tools are being used in the real world at the heart of scalable, sustainable operations. These are the conversations that will shape the next phase of global media innovation.”

Jeras concluded by emphasizing the economic urgency of collaboration: “The value of IBC is in bringing the media industry from around the world together, making it the right place for important conversations. Everyone agrees that the top priority is to drive economies to maintain commercial viability in the industry: the conversations at IBC will be how we achieve this goal.”