Business News Holding

Tag: voices-of-the-industry

  • HD LCD TV with Integrated iPhone/iPod Docking Station Coming in November

    While looking for some nice gadgets at this year’s IFA, Biz-New.com came across Vestel’s LCD TV with integrated iPhone/iPod docking station. Barış Altinkay, Product Manager for Vestel, gave us a demonstration on the product as well as a short introduction to the company.

    Vestel Group is comprised of 24 companies operating in manufacturing, technology development, marketing, and distribution fields in the consumer electronics,digital technologies, IT and household appliances, with € 3.7 billion turnover.

    According to the company, they account for 21% of the total TV, 10% of the TLC TV, 25% of the digital set-top boxes, and 10% of the household appliances markets in Europe.

  • Internet On The Go: Interview with Deb Hall, Managing Director at Web2Mobile

    Web2Mobile is a company that specializes in making your content mobile ready for ease of use for your customers on the go.

    In the last 12 months we seen a lot change in the mobile market with a huge transition of users putting their mobile devices ahead of their laptops and desktop computers.

    Web2Mobile works with companies to strategize efforts to make the transition as easy as possible for both the company and the users will access that content.

    When asked whether companies understand the need to transition to mobile technology, Deb Hall states, “there is confusion on the term mobile marketing and what it entails and the opportunities it can offer.” To ease some of the misunderstanding, Web2Mobile specializes in creating a suite of tools that help to erase that confusion and make the client feel comfortable changing the format of their content.

    The tools created by Web2Mobile apparently make it easier for marketers or publishers to upload their content into Web2Mobile’s self serve system and convert it, making it mobile friendly. Being a service oriented business, it looks to reduce the costs based on consultants helping companies make the change and puts the power of the transition into the hands of the client themselves.

    “We’ve all seen content not formatted for mobility, such as bad email newsletters, unformatted websites, and this content just does not transition to the world of mobility,” says Deb Hall when asked about companies that think they can do it on their own. She made it a point to stress that there is a definite need to understand the difference between the normal web and the mobile browsers and that development for the two is very different.

    Deb Hall

    Deb notes that even on a personal level, using mobile devices create a difference in behavior in how we use and read content and how we interact with our devices. No longer are we worried about being at a desktop, nor do we have to worry about the life of a battery on a laptop. In the last ten months she notes that this transition has become more apparent as the iPhone, specifically, has immersed itself into the general populace.

    She also notes that “the mobile browsing space has increased as much as 400% month to month,” make it apparent that companies want to make it easy for the end user to use the devices and access their content. With the increase in wifi tethering, the ability to access content anywhere, and making the technology tools easily accessible to just about anyone, it’s not surprising to see such high numbers of adopters.

    Is the Western World Ready?

    There is a distinct difference in how the West uses mobile technology compared to our counterparts in the Far East. Our Eastern counterparts are using mobile technology for entertainment, streaming TV, music, maps, directions, and just about every basic need possible. The advancement of technology in mobility is leaps and bounds ahead of the West.

    In response to our conversation Deb Hall states that when “[she] worked for Yahoo mobile she noticed distinct differences in how both side of the globe use technology. There are behaviors that are distinct to each country. Pricing models are different and that drives the behavior.” She notes an example on how fast mobile technology picked up in the UK and how it was based on the nominal fee for use compared to Western pricing.

    There is no doubt that the West is slowly catching up with our overseas counterparts, but there is still a long way to go. Web2Mobile is doing it’s part to help companies understand just how important mobile technology can be to their business and eventually their overall bottom line.

    Key Points

    At what point does a company consider going mobile? It’s a matter of strategy, and companies like Web2Mobile look to help companies develop that strategy. When Deb hears the word strategy she thinks about how they are going into battle. The goal is to get their clients in front of as many people as possible.

    “How do we know we’re implementing the right strategy? It’s very important to determine the key objective, is it sales, awareness, or creating a good user experience? It’s all about prioritising,” Deb Hall says regarding the key points that must be identified.

    In all the studies done on mobile users it’s been determined that mobile users are more than likely to act on a call to action. The key then becomes how to make the call to action easy to find. It’s vital for companies to make their sites, emails, and advertisement mobile ready and easy to use.

    Tracking Metrics

    A key factor for a company is to know how much interaction is being done with their new mobile strategy. Metrics give good insights on the success of the campaign, and having access to those metrics can determine the direction.

    “One of the first questions we get when we work with new client is which platform they should be on. Should I be on an iPhone or Blackberry,” says Deb about the confusion of entering the mobile space.

    An inside tip that Deb shares with us is that most companies can evaluate what is happening on your current website and from there determine what devices are accessing your content. Based on those metrics you can better plan your mobile strategy based on those percentages of iPhone vs Blackberry vs any other mobile device.

    An example Deb gave was their involvement with the Masters Tournament. Based on the metrics they analyzed they were able to serve up distinct content to users on various platforms. This makes the content unique to each user experience and helps to build that relationship between the company and their end user.

    Web2Mobile is very excited with the involvement in FITC and hopes to interact with marketers, developers, and agencies and introduce them to their suite of tools. They look to share with all attendees what they are doing and hope that more companies understand the importance of making their content accessible via mobile devices, especially companies serious about extending their brand online.

  • Automating Phone Calls: Interview with Irv Shapiro, CEO of Ifbyphone


    Ifbyphone does something very very simple. They automate phone calls. The process of automation can be done with pretty much any phone call.

    “Lets say for example you wanted to have a toll free number, an 800 number or even a local number for your business, and when your customer called that number, you wanted to take their caller ID and automatically look up if they have any orders outstanding with your business and if they did, you wanted to tell them when those orders would ship,” said Irv Shapiro, CEO & CTO of Ifbyphone, in response to how the automation works.

    Previously companies were using a call center to do this and it was costing them $20, $30, $40 an hour depending if it was onshore or offshore. Any company can do this using automated technology for about $3 an hour. So from the very first month, you save money.

    But let’s say also the company wanted someone to say “Operator,” “Agent,” “Help Me” at any time, and then you wanted that call transferred to your office or even better yet, transferred to people at home because one out of 10 Americans is looking for work today. All of this is possible and furthermore you could build a home-based call center very inexpensively.

    What is Cloud Telephony

    In today’s world of cloud computing, we have a concept called time sharing, people sharing large computer resources. By sharing these large computer resources, a company is able to save everybody money.

    So in today’s world of cloud computing there are a couple different models we could simplify it by saying there’s the model where you rent computer time but you bring all your own programs, that would be the Amazon Model. And then there’s the model where you rent programs and you can customize those programs and integrate those programs with your business, Salesforce is a good example of this method.

    Irv Shapiro goes on to share that “what changed was in the last three decades, more and more people bought equipment and they put that equipment in their businesses. And it was attached to the telephone system and maybe your business was big enough that there was the Telephone Guy who was the only one in that business that knew how to maintain the telephone system.”

    One of the major advantages of replacing a networked phone system with a system in the cloud is that software updates are automatic, your system does not become obsolete, there are engineers on call 24/7 so it’s a totally different level of service. Irv Shapiro stresses that this is where Ifbyphone excels in service.

    When asked how Ifbyphone ranks differently from other VoIP companies, he responds, “Ifbyphone allows small to medium sized businesses to do the things with the telephone that very large businesses routinely do. So if you call your stock broker or if you call your airline or if you call a very large mass retailer in all likelihood they are using some kind of automated telephone system to process your order. It’s more cost effective, and work works more rapidly for you.”

    Getting Over the Fear by Saving Dollars

    One of Ifbyphone’s customers is an organization called Go Configure. They are a small to medium organization that most people have never heard of. If you go to a big box retailer and you buy a bicycle and you say to the salesperson “I don’t think I want to put this together, can you have somebody put this together for me?” they will say “sure, we’ll send somebody to your home once you’re bicycle gets there.” Go Configure is that company that no only fields the customers calls, but also has the second side, the installer calls.

    What they found that on average they had to make 5 phone calls to make sure the consumer was going to be home at the right time and that the installer was going to be there at the right time. And they have replaced that all with automated telephone applications from Ifbyphone. So they expect within their first year that they will have saved $70,000. They will be able to take two people who were just making phone calls all day long, on average 5 calls to set up every appointment, those 2 people will be able to do other things for their business.

    “Saving money and resource is what is important to companies today,” responds Irv Shapiro when questioned as to what is the most important factor of moving to unique services such as these.

    What is the broader vision of the industry itself? Is technology growing with the customer’s need?

    Irv Shapiro seems to think that there are two parts to that answer. The first part is of course technology is moving faster. Google is a 12 year old company with hundreds of billions of dollars of market value making billions of dollars every year. They’ve done it for a dozen years, that’s unheard of in the history of commerce.

     

    Technology is moving faster, the challenge is that when tech moves quickly it usually leaves people behind in its wake because not everyone can move at light speed. Some people need a little time to absorb things. Things have to be put in their perspective.

    Ifbyphone’s goal is to make it so easy that if you know how to use email, you now know how to set up your own phone application; you know how to route phone calls; you know how to set up interactive phone dialogue; you know how to do voice based phone messages; because we’re going to make it as easy as reading your email.

    So you do have to be computer comfortable to use their technology, but the challenge is not the rate of changes in technology, its taking that technology and making it so easy that anybody can use it.

  • TomTom Presents Car Kit for iPhone

    Biz.News.com reporters navigated to TomTom’s stand at IFA 2009, where Sarah Schweiger, PR Manager for TomTom, gave them a brief introduction to the company: their main markets, competitors and challenges as well as newly released products, including long-expected car kit for iPhone scheduled to ship in the U.S. in October.

  • The Perspectives for Over the Top Television


    INTERVIEW. The emergence of Over the Top Television (OTT) technologies is not widely viewed as a threat to the existence of telcos in their quest to transform IPTV services, an official has said.

    Victor Dominguez, vice president of DS2, a leading provider of semiconductors for high-speed communications over existing wires, said fears doing the rounds in the information communication technology sector had no substance at the moment.

    “It is early to say. OTT has a huge potential and there is growing acceptance in some regions like the USA. The message I am hearing from telcos is that OTT is ok and will have market adoption, but cannot deliver quality.”

    “When it comes to good TV experience, the telcos are saying that they still have an advantage. Also, they are currently in discussions on whether OTT will be able to pay for premium content (without counting on a monthly subscription fee of the end user),” said Dominguez.

     Victor Dominguez

    Dominguez was reacting to questions by Biz-News.com on whether the emergence of OTT would pose any threats to the existing IPTV.

    He said small format to medium quality OTT was fine, but quickly noted that large format to HD/high quality IPTV was better.

    “On the other hand OTT has its own challenges with more and more quality content being provided over free DTT,” said Dominguez.

    Although he admitted that the OTT and IPTV would compete and fill in different market demands, Dominguez hinted that the regular internet connection offerings from telcos were rather expensive nowadays.

    He dismissed any partnerships between OTT and telcos.

    Dominguez’s DS2 was founded in 1998 and has more than 130 employees based in Santa Clara, Tokyo (Japan), Taipei and Valencia (Spain).

    Dominguez said because DS2 chips could operate over power lines, phone lines and coaxial cable, users didn’t have to install new Ethernet wires to set up a robust wired network.

    “DS2 technology is widely used in many markets, including consumer home networks, IPTV distribution applications, Smart Grid or Ethernet over Coax services."

    “Telco IPTV (ie, a broadcast-quality TV service provided by a Telecommunication Service Provider, as opposed to "Internet TV" or "Over-the-Top TV" services such as Hulu.com or Apple iTunes) is one of the main drivers for wired home networking (and powerline networking in particular)."

    “There are multiple reasons why Telco Service Providers choose powerline-based solutions for IPTV distribution instead of Wireless solutions like 802.11n,” said Dominguez.

    He said wireless LANs, which usually have signal propagation problems where there are multiple walls between a transmitter and a receiver, especially with metal and concrete walls Wireless LAN signals, were not easily contained inside a single home.
    He said as a result there was potential for interference to neighbour Wireless LANs, especially in densely populated areas.

    He said most Wireless LAN products did not have the reliability and Quality of Service (QoS) required to support applications like HDTV.

    “Delivering broadcast-quality HDTV channels in a Telco IPTV environment is specially challenging because the content is delivered over multicast UDP streams. UDP does not have automatic retransmission capabilities, so any lost UDP packet may create visual artifacts (macroblocking) on the TV screen."

    “Also, most Set-Top Boxes (STB) used in Telco IPTV applications have limited reception buffers, which means that they are very sensitive to packet latency and jitter. DS2 provides high-speed powerline communication chipsets specially designed for Telco IPTV applications, that provide the performance, latency and QoS required for HD video streaming."

    “For applications where maximum performance is required, DS2 offers the DSS9101+DSS7800 chipset (Aitana), with a maximum PHY data rate of 200 Mbps. DS2 also offers a lower speed solution, the DSS8101+DSS7800 chipset (Montgo), with a maximum PHY data rate of 100 Mbps,” Dominguez said.

    He said both solutions were fully interoperable and pinned compatible, allowing system designers to create multiple products with a common PCB design.

    Dominguez said both Aitana and Montgo chips were powered by DS2’s SPIRIT firmware, which provides advanced capabilities such as TR-069 compliant remote management, programmable QoS, automatic repeating capabilities, secure firmware upgrade, automatic multicast support via IGMP-snooping and many other features.

  • IFA 2009: Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD Media Player


    VIDEO INTERVIEW. “After watching Blu-ray video or other HD content, you will never go back to Standard Definition,” assured Konstantin Dyshlevoy, Chairmain of HDI Dune, interviewed by Biz-news.com at IFA 2009.

    During this year’s Berlin exhibition HDI Dune was showing its new versions of hybrid Blu-ray/HD media players that have been recognized as “IFA 2009 INNOVATION”.

    Don’t miss the part of the video in which Konstantin gives his own explanation on why the world economic crisis has positively affected the HD market.

    HDI Dune was the first to presente hybrid Blu-ray/HD media player solution nearly one year ago, at IFA 2008. New 3.0 players come with all the features of hybrid devices developed and polished during this year on Prime/Base 1.0/2.0 products on 8634 chip, including full support of Blu-ray and DVD ISO images and directory structures (inc. menu, subtitles, sound tracks, BD-J, BD-Live features, etc), auto frame-rate feature, full support of MKV (inc. high bit-rate) and SMB/UPnP resources browser.

    The BD Prime model includes Blu-ray drive and is capable of playing Blu-ray and DVD discs as long as nearly any files from a diversity of storage types which can be connected via USB, eSATA or Ethernet/Wi-Fi. The HD Base model doesn’t contain Blu-ray drive but has a compartment for easy changeable 3.5" DATA HDD.

  • New Opportunities for IPTV

    INTERVIEW. In a wide-ranging interview with Biz-news.com, Benjamin Schwarz, chief technology officer for CTO Innovation Consulting Group, who has 20 years of international experience in consulting and in Telco & Media organization, gave an insight into the IPTV development.

    He also talks about the new opportunities the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa gives IPTV. He is convinced the World Cup would witness a tremendous shift to new and highly advanced 3D video demonstrations.

    Content key to IPTV

    Acquiring content for IPTV has become reasonable and content owners are now recognising operators as legitimate in their business, Schwarz revealed.

    He said while a few years back it was impossible to engage in VoD negotiations, with time this has changed for the better.

    “In VoD negotiations ‘minimum guarantees’ are still a stumbling block whereas a few years ago they were in an impassable barrier,” he said.

    Benjamin Schwarz

    Technology due-diligence requirements are also relaxing and majors are beginning to realise that in smaller markets where piracy is rife it’s better to have a little revenue-stream even if it means letting go of the precious ‘minimum guarantees’ rather than having nothing,” Schwarz added.

    He explained that through the years it has become much easier to get content for IPTV operators through the technological developments.

    “A new content aggregation business is coming into existence with specialist VoD outfits like Grey Juice Labs or bigger live TV aggregators like Avail Media. There are even highly specialised consultancies like 3Vision in the UK.

    “So all in all, it’s a lot easier to get access to content now than it was just a few years ago,” said Schwarz.

    Focusing on the growth of IPTV in terms of market and technology, Schwarz said once Telcos got their offers in place, most markets would have a significant IPTV user base of 10 to 30 percent of households.

    He also noted that in future there would be a shift between telcos and content operators.

    IPTV continues to make positive strides

    Meanwhile, strategic technological alliances seem to be the required solution to the array of challenges that were faced by IPTV’s early adopters, Schwarz said.

    Schwarz believes the challenges have since lessened significantly since suppliers such as Microsoft, Cisco, Motorola and Thomson offered a complete end-to-end solution, and other smaller vendors have already integrated with others.

    He said early IPTV adopters faced huge challenges in access to content while the second challenge was the technical difficulty in delivering a Quality of Experience (QoE).

    “The first challenge has all but gone; the market has a lot more actors in it now, and access to an entry-level channel line-up as well as a decent VoD catalogue is within most operators’ reach,” said Schwarz.

    He said standards such as those of the Open IPTV forum have had a much positive impact. However, unlike with content, the technological challenge still remains in South Africa .

    “User expectations of quality are getting higher all the time. So, even as we learn to reach the targets, they are being pulled further away all the time,” said Schwarz.

    He said an example of this could be observed in the user interface.

    “Users interface design is good example of such a moving target. We’re getting so much better all the time, yet never quite good enough,” he said.

    Two most prevalent issues in the projects were recently seen at the CTOiC in 2009 – Over-The-Top (OTT) & Hybrid.

    The OTT issue has many sides. Some content operators want to deliver OTT directly to Network operators’ customers.

    “This is for example, what Joost failed to do, but in many cases they work together as is the case with the BBC’s iPlayer and VirginMedia” said Schwarz.

    However operators with walled garden approaches view OTT as a necessary evil because it will enable only just enough and subscribers won’t churn, – not a feature more.

    TV widgets from the entities like Yahoo! confuse the picture further. Set makers are adopting different stances with their new connected TVs in this raging war.

    “I don’t know how the dust will settle on this. I suppose users, the market will have to decide,” said Schwarz.

    2010 World Cup to showcase advanced IPTV technology

    The forthcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa will see a leading international forum of the electronic media industry demonstrating highly sophisticated technology aimed at improving television communication and quality.

    Schwarz said the 3D video would precisely demonstrate how serious IBC would execute its latest technological advancement in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics.

    “This year IBC showed some great 3D video demonstration, so I definitely think that will be important. I imagine that the coming World Cup in your country (South Africa) will be too soon; we’ll probably see some demos around that event though.

    “London’s Olympics in 2012 will be the real launch of 3D. Satellite and Cablecos might be first to market but for once they won’t steal the show from IPTV because the extra bandwidth required is pretty small so it will be a level playing field,” said Schwarz.

    Schwarz believes a lot of venture capital would be channeled towards this technological development as evidenced by the on-going huge debate on the social aspect of television.

    Turning to IPTV system, Schwarz said since the landscape of electronic technology was changing at an ever-increasing pace, he was convinced that some of the Content Operators who use CTOiC would survive while the old would find the going tough.

  • IFA 2009: The Smallest Wireless Printer and Scanner for Smartphones


    Biz-News.com reporters interviewed Klaus Düll, the owner of PRETIOSO, the distributor of Datomo mobile solutions for German speaking market.

    Datomo provides mobile application development and marketing services and offers web to mobile content integration& adaptation. PRETIOSO localizes all the Datomo’s apps for the German language.

    Klaus gave us a live demonstration on the world’s smallest wireless printer and scanner designed for smartphones and offered by PLANon. According to him, the printer is also the world’s first to have built in paper cartridge.

    Take a look at these tiny smart devices!

  • IFA 2009: Menq Presents Mini GPS/GSM Tracker with GPRS

    VIDEO INTERVIEW: Biz-News.com interviewed Ann Meng, Marketing & Sales Manager of Menq International. She presented the company’s star product – mini GPS/GSM tracker with GPRS.

    This tiny device shows directly map location on any mobile without installing any software and transmits the SMS message of longitude, latitude and location link to cell phone. It supports indoor orientation, single location reporting and continuous tracking. In case of emergency, help message with location is send to all preset phone numbers.

    Menq’s products, include GPS/GPRS/GSM Trackers, Portable Navigation Device and GPS Mobile Phones, are sold to importers and ODM / OEM manufacturers in America, Asia, Europe and Middle East. In order to expand their overseas markets, the company have installed sales representatives in Germany and USA and is now actively seeking overseas partners to build up long term relationships.

  • IFA 2009: Real Cable Feels the Difference

    VIDEO INTERVIEW. Quality cables become more and more important part of HD – both video and audio – markets. At IFA 2009 in Berlin, Biz-News.com interviewed Catherine Torchin, Managing Director and owner of Real Cable. She described to us the strategy of the company that has already been successful on 25 markets worldwide.

    Laurent Zawadil, Technical Menager for Real Cable, showed us the latest company’s product – innovative 1.4 HDMI cable with additional Ethernet Channel. The cable will be introduced to the market in October this year, but you can take a look at its main features right now.

    This is how the company described itself at this year’s IFA

    REAL CABLE was born in 1999 from the association of experience and conviction to answer the growing demand of High Fidelity and Home Theatre sound and picture perfection.

    Nowadays «Real Cable is one of the top cable manufacturers whose reputation has reached every corner of the world» commented a well-known journalist from a specialised press.

    Thanks to close collaboration with the major Hi-Fi and Home Theatre professionals, REAL CABLE was able to develop 4 product ranges: AVS, EVOLUTION, INNOVATION and MASTER, meeting the strictest technical demands in a variety of budget areas.

    Real Cable manufacture partners are in agreement with the most important certification norms and environmental regulations: ISO 9001 – ISO 9002 – ISO 14001 – HDMI LLC. All Real Cable products are ROHS compliant.

    Today REAL CABLE is a leading company on the French market in the field of high level cables for the Hi-Fi and Home Theatre equipment.