Based: San Mateo, CA
Founded: 1999
www.entone.com
Why it's fierce: Entone is fast becoming an IPTV household name, especially after it sold its VOD business to Harmonic for a cool $45 million. Entone is now focusing on its booming customer premise equipment (CPE) business. While Entone's VOD offerings alone would have qualified it for this list, the acquisition forced us to consider its other products--which still prove impressive and include residential gateways and set-top boxes with DVR and home networking capabilities. As part of the deal with Harmonic, Entone will receive a $2.5 million investment in its CPE business from the company.
What to look for: Entone will probably build its CPE business up and continue to gain service provider deals worldwide until it sells its remaining business to a big end-to-end solutions provider.