DESIGN IS EVERYTHING*
DESIGN IS EVERYTHING* “Design” is a great word. Whether in engineering or in creative endeavours, as a verb, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan. Designing a marketing/communication campaign can often be even more important than the design of the product itself as sales reps and consumers are bombarded with an overload of conflicting information. We at Cleverdis therefore hold the belief that the growth of the CE Industry today will be increasingly dependent upon INFORMATION DESIGN. Through information design, presented in the form of Cleverdis SPECIALreports, many of the world’s top CE companies benefit from the fact that we are able to put information into perspective for a market that hungers for newfound clarity and simplicity. IFA has this year chosen Cleverdis as the “information designer” of IFA INTERNATIONAL, the official English language daily magazine for the show. Find our more on www.cleverdis.com. *According to wikipedia: Information design has been defined as the art and science of preparing information so that it can be used by human beings with efficiency and effectiveness. Information Intelligence
NEWS Alcatel-Lucent Chooses IFA for the World First Public Demonstration of Mobile TV Encompassing DVB-H and DVB-SH Standards While Mobile TV is already booming on existing cellular infrastructures in a unicast/point-to-point mode (i.e. where one bearer is allocated to one user) , this mode is not the best way to deliver the same content to a very large number of users at the same time, due to limited bandwidth. This simple technological constraint has until recently prevented mobile TV from being deployed to a mass market. The only way to solve this problem in order to offer mainstream TV channels on mobile to a large number of viewers is to build dedicated mobile broadcast networks that complement existing cellular networks. While these networks may solve technological issues, there are still several key considerations that have to be taken into account for the system to grow: • A business model based on an attractive subscription plan allowing unlimited usage. • Good in-building performance, similar to the performance offered by cellular networks. • A harmonized technology and frequency framework to prevent market fragmentation and allow for a wide IFA International • Friday, 24 th August 2007 choice of devices. To overcome the technical issues, Alcatel-Lucent has developed a hybrid satellite /terrestrial mobile broadcast concept that uses the “S band” spectrum which is available worldwide. Known as Unlimited Mobile TV, the solution is encompassing the existing DVB-H standard as well as the newly recognised DVB-SH standard, promising to provide the performance that users demand and content that users crave. How does DVB-SH work? The Unlimited Mobile TV solution includes DVB-H as well as a hybrid DVB-SH solution using a highpower, geo-stationary satellite and a network of low-power repeaters, co-located with cellular base stations. DVB-SH is an evolution of the DVB- Handheld (DVB-H) standard, called DVB-Satellite services to Handhelds (DVB-SH), delivering content and data to terminals such as mobile phones, PDAs and navigation devices via satellite. Repeaters will be used in urban areas, mostly for indoor coverage, supporting satellite coverage for Unlimited Mobile TV. These repeaters re-transmit at the frequency of the satellite carrier, which offers indoor Details Emerge of JVC - Kenwood Alliance Integration of Management Under Discussion The consumer electronics industry is dominated by digital products which require significant capital investment and massive software development processes. In addition, the digitization trend has shortened product development cycles and led to fierce marketshare and pricing competition. Finally, the rise of Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers has further intensified competition in the global market. To this end, Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC) and Kenwood Corporation have entered into a capital and business alliance agreement, the focal points of which relate to their business cooperation in the areas of car electronics and home/portable audio businesses and the commencement of discussions concerning the integration of their management teams. It is expected that once the deal is finalised, JVC’s status will change from a consolidated subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. to an equity-method associated company of Matsushita. The latter, as JVC’s largest shareholder, has agreed with JVC, Kenwood and Sparx (Kenwood’s financial partner) that Matsushita will continue to support the discussions concerning the possible integration of JVC and KENWOOD’s managements, although Matsushita will not be directly involved in such discussions. coverage similar to a co-located UMTS system. The system thus provides cost-effective coverage for large geographical areas. Suitable spatial technologies, such as large satellite antennas and highpower platforms are used to provide a net delivery speed of 2.3 Mbits/s in a 5 MHz bandwidth, allowing direct reception of up to 18 broadcast TV channels at 256 kbits/s directly from satellite to handsets, larger devices or cars, and of up to 90 broadcast TV channels via terrestrial repeaters. Unlimited Mobile TV solution gaining strong momentum In July 2007, only four months after the specifications of the new DVB-SH standard for broadcast mobile TV were approved by the DVB Project during 3GSM, Alcatel-Lucent announced its first DVB-SH deployment contract with ICO in the United States, a DVB- SH technology test with SFR in France and the launch of its terrestrial repeaters offer for broadcast mobile TV: things are moving real fast! World’s First Public Demonstration at IFA 2007 In an effort to encourage ongoing innovation in technology, IFA is this year hosting Alcatel-Lucent as a strategic technology partner, enabling the company to demonstrate and explain this system which aims not only to New Strategy Planned Given the severity of the current market conditions, JVC and KENWOOD have agreed that the planned capital increase through third party allotment will be treated not as a mere transfer of capital, but as a strategy in conjunction with the commencement of cooperation in the car electronics and home/portable audio businesses which both are engaged in, and that they will continue their discussions with the aim of management integration to thrive in an AV market characterized by increasingly fierce competition. With respect to the business cooperation, which is scheduled to begin in October 2007, under the structure currently contemplated, the scale of the combined car electronics business of the two companies will be approxi-mately 160 billion yen, which is expected to lead to an increase in their added value and enhanced market competitiveness through business integration in the areas of development, materials procurement and production, as well as a full exploitation of economies of scale and the two companies’ human, capital and technological resources. put Mobile TV within the reach of a much broader audience, but also again puts Europe at the forefront of technological development when it comes to the convergence of broadcast and mobile communication technologies. MEETING POINT: Alcatel-Lucent’s “DVB-H, DVB-SH and Service Delivery Environment Tutorial” is part of the Technology & Science Forum (TWF) in Hall 5.3 / 11, with a DVB-H and DVB-SH walking demo", featuring IFA International TV. 7
