Category: Software

MUMBAI: The Aegis Group-owned global market research firm Synovate has made a major investment in marketing research in the digital environment through the creation of Digital Centre of Excellence.

Based in London, the centre will service clients globally. It will specialise in understanding and measuring the effectiveness of brands‘ advertising through digital media.
 
Explaining the rationale behind the initiative, Synovate capabilities and practices CEO Ged Parton said, “Whilst many companies are making a good deal of effort recording what is happening in the digital environment, Synovate believes that there is still breakthrough work to be done in understanding how the environment works at the individual person level to build, support, reinforce and change brand relationships.”

Synovate has also initiated a significant ‘research on research‘ effort. The programme will be led by Philip Shaw, head of digital communications research for Synovate in the UK. Shaw will work closely with Synovate‘s innovation leaders including Director of Innovation Dr Jan Hofmeyr, based in Cape Town, South Africa.  
 
Parton said: “Our intention is to regularly publish what we fully expect to be provocative and challenging thought pieces contradicting some of the current received wisdom in the industry and reinforce our commitment to challenging the industry and living our research reinvented mission.”
The company is already running pilot ‘research on research‘ programmes. These include:

– assessing the relationship between social media buzz and commercially relevant brand relationship, i.e., as relationships move market share moves;

– reviewing actual communication exposure versus claimed memory utilising cookie based technology;

– a URL “webmeter”: a browser plug in this captures panel members‘ online behaviour and relates this behavioral data to attitudinal changes.

Parton also confirmed that Synovate‘s strategy is to partner with external technology firms. “We are specialists in the why questions of research – why people think as they do, why they behave as they do, why they chose as they do. It makes good sense for us to stick to our core competency and partner with outstanding technology based specialists who have the soft and hardware skills that our clients need.”

NEW DELHI: With the government concluding the auction for 3G in the 34th day, the total revenue to the exchequer is expected to be Rs 677,189.5 million.

The pan-India figure at the end of 183 rounds today was Rs 167,505.8 million. However, the Communications and Information Technology Ministry said the auction results are provisional and subject to approval by the Government. Frequencies in MHz were also allocated to the successful bidders.

The government had hoped to collect Rs 35,000 million after auctioning the airwaves for both 3G services and broadband, even as the bidding for the latter is expected to commence on 22 May. Thus, the pan-India licence has gone up by nearly 378.58 per cent over the base price.
 
However, no single player won a pan-India licence for 3G services and the number of top bidders was three or four at each of the 22 service centres. With the exception of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, and Jammu and Kashmir which had four successful bidders, the other 18 service centres had three successful bidders.

The successful bidders were Bharti Airtel (13 service centres), Reliance (12 centres), Aircel (11 centres), Idea Cellular (11 centres), Tata Teleservices (nine centres), Vodafone Essar (eight centres), and S Tel (three centres). Interestingly, Etisalat DB Telecom and Videocon Telecommunications which also participated in the auction could not win a single circle.

Delhi had the highest bid of Rs 33,169.3 million each from Vodaphone, Bharti and Reliance while Mumbai had a bid of Rs 32,470.7 million each from Reliance, Vodafone and Bharti. The frequencies allocated are in the range of 1959-1964 MHz. 
 
1969-1974 MHz, and 1974-1979 MHz. Karnataka came next with Rs.15,799.1 million, followed by Tamil Nadu with Rs.14649.4 million.

Ministry sources said Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd which have already been issued airwaves for 3G services will also have to pay this winner‘s price, collectively pegged at Rs.167,505.8 million. Jammu and Kashmir had the lowest bid at Rs.303 million.
The auction was held on all days starting 9 April except Sundays and national holidays.

The winning firms will have to deposit the money within 10 days from now and will be allowed to offer 3G services on a commercial basis from Sep 1.

Global investment bank Rothschild and telecom auction services provider dot.econ advised the government on the auctions.
 

MUMBAI: The DTH sector has been seeing some hectic jostling for market share and customer acquisition. Now it is about to get another shot of hyperactivity if a report in the Financial Express is to be believed. According to the report, the Foreign Investment Promotions Board (FIPB) has green signaled Star’s proposal to take a stake in its (49 per cent: 51 per cent) joint venture with the Tatas – TS Investments – which will then take a 20 per cent stake in their DTH joint venture, Tata Sky. It will also inject Rs 3.24 billion into Tata Sky.

The report states that following TS Investments’ investment in Tata Sky, Star’s stake in Tata Sky will go up to 30 per cent (sic) while that of the Tata group will come down from the current 70 per cent to 50 per cent.
  
Star had earlier applied to increase its stake in the joint venture. But it had resubmitted its proposal once again as the earlier one had not adequately taken care of the foreign direct investment and cross media regulations in DTH ventures.

The resubmitted proposal, envisages the shareholding pattern in Tata Sky ending up being as follows: Tata Sons (50 per cent), TS Investments (20 per cent), Baytree Investments Mauritius (10 per cent) and Dubai-based Network Digital Distribution Services (NDDS – 20 percent). NDDS is part of the Star group.

What paved the way for the proposal to get the go ahead was the government’s amendment to its FDI policy last year that stated that investment through companies owned and controlled by Indians would not count in the calculation of foreign investment. In the Star proposal, since TS Investments is majority owned by Tata Sons, Star’s stake in it is not being considered as FDI, says a source in the finance ministry. 
 
Additionally, the new Star proposal addressed the issue of cross media restrictions. Since both NDDS and Star India BV (a Dutch company which is investing in TS Investments) do not hold an uplink and downlink license (the criteria to be called a broadcaster in India), they are not contravening the cross media investment restriction of 20 per cent laid on broadcasting companies.

Tata Sky CEO Vikram Kaushik refused to comment on whether the proposal had got the government’s go ahead. And Star India CEO Uday Shankar who had taken a flight to Europe last night was unavailable. Sources within Star stated that they had not yet got the official confirmation from on the same and hence would not like to comment.
 

MUMBAI: LCDs and LEDs TVs are two of the best selling displays in India. In a year or so, it is quite possible that OLED (organic light emitting) displays might become a reality in India. OLEDs are basically, thin displays which can even be rolled and kept away.

Du Pont yesterday announced that it has come up with a new process which reduces costs of OLEDs manufacturing. Currently, a 15 inch OLED TV made by LG, costs about $2,725, because it is manufactured using a cumbersome and more expensive process.

With the new process, Du Pont developed with Dainippon Screen larger screens that can be now manufactured and prices could drop drastically and make OLEDs a household item.
 
OLEDs, recently, have attracted much attention as the next big thing in display technology with their ability to provide high contrast and bright displays with high response times and wide viewing angles while remaining extremely thin and energy efficient. Because they don’t rely on backlighting, they eliminate the need for many of the LCD components, such as backlights and color filters.

“OLED displays in portable devices are available in the market today, but the current high cost of manufacturing with evaporated materials has limited market adoption and constrained OLED manufacturing for larger size displays,” said DuPont electronics & communications David Miller. “Now, with DuPont printed OLED materials and process technology, fabrication costs can be significantly reduced, and manufacturing can be scaled to accommodate TV-size displays.” 
 
The new process DuPont developed along with Dainippon Screen uses a multi-nozzle printer that works like a garden hose to deposit inks that contain active molecules that are insoluble in adjacent layers.

It prints the ink in a continuous stream, rather than droplets, and moves over a surface at rates of 4-5m per second while patterning a display. DuPont also says its red, blue and green OLEDs will last about 15 years when run eight hours a day, putting to rest criticism about the longevity of the screens.

In India low priced OLEDs can have tremendous applications especially when mobile TV and 3G phones become widespread. Phone subscribers will be able to watch television anywhere by connecting their hand phone to the OLED.

MUMBAI: NDS is planning to relocate some of its staff from its research and development division and managers from India and Israel to its Chinese facility in Shenzhen where its R&D, engineering and customer support staff are housed. The leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV today announced that it would treble its investments in local people and infrastructure in 2010 as it increases development of solutions, partnerships and services for customers in China and the rest of the world.
 
This is to add to the 73 per cent increase in its headcount it has effected over the past 12 months in China. NDS plans to further its partnerships with Chinese companies in the consumer electronics space, semiconductors, systems integration, and digital-TV applications market.

As part of this, it has partnered with Changhong, a leading set-top box (STB) and CE manufacturer, to develop a range of interactive applications for the Chinese market, targeted at convergence and the Next Generation Broadband (NGB) initiative. NDS will market these applications to other regions, as part of a drive to increase export opportunities for Chinese CE and STB manufacturers. NDS is also partnering with leading value-added TV service provider DOXTV, to bring DVR and push VOD functionality in China.  
 
“We believe that Chinese digital-TV technology will have a major impact on the global pay-TV market, as other countries start to seek out Chinese knowledge, experience and products. We already have significant resources in China, and accelerating our investment now and in the future allows us to rapidly increase our support for the dynamic and growing Chinese digital-TV market,” said Sue Taylor Chairman, NDS China, Senior Vice President and General Manager Asia Pacific.

“NDS supports the government’s initiatives by providing tailor-made solutions for NGB and Three Network Convergence, while forging stronger links with local vendors to jointly develop solutions for the Chinese market,” continued Taylor.

MUMBAI: Asian TV system integrator and video asset manager Benchmark Systems is being bought out by Prague-headquartered KIT digital, an on-demand, Internet Protocol (IP)-based video asset management systems provider.

The latter has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the privately held company, which has a strong presence in India through its offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata apart from Singapore (its headquarters), and Beijing. Benchmark services many Indian broadcast clients including ESPN Star, ETV, NDTV, Reliance Mediaworks, Sahara, TV9, and Zee TV. The company is expected to generate revenues of $10 million in the next 12 months.
 
KIT will be acquiring 100 per cent of Benchmark shares. In return, it has commitments to pay the latter approximately $9.5 million directly (comprising $4.5 million in cash and $5.0 million in KIT digital common stock) plus approximately $1.1 million, to be paid to employees over two years. The transaction also includes corporate performance-based contingent considerations at the first and second anniversary of the transaction. KIT digital expects Benchmark to be immediately accretive on a cash-flow, EBITDA, and net profit basis.

“Benchmark was a choice acquisition for us in a number of ways and one which we have been working on for some time,” said KIT digital‘s chairman & CEO Kaleil Isaza Tuzman. “This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to the Asian markets and our determination to be the leader in video asset management in the Bric markets. It also represents an extension to our existing IPTV systems integration capabilities — which support our larger-scale software implementations with broadcasters and network operators.” 
 
Adds KIT digital president Gavin Campion: “We plan to cross-sell our VX-one video management platform into Benchmark‘s existing client base while leveraging Benchmark‘s on-the-ground presence in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Greater China to expand our business more quickly in the region.”

Benchmark president Ashish Mukherjee gave his point of view: “We have been experiencing first-hand, the shift in Asia from traditional video systems to IP-based technologies. We are excited to be joining the global leader in IP video management and we believe our collective strength will yield exceptional value and benefits for our combined customer base. Given Benchmark management‘s two decades of expanding relationships with content owners and network operators across the region, we think the sales synergies between our companies are powerful.”

“We are also looking forward to collaborating on software development for both IP- and ASI-based video technologies,” added Mukherjee, “combining our companies‘ respective strengths in video and broadcast technologies, and bridging the gap between traditional broadcast and new media for customers in emerging markets. As a combined force, we believe we now offer a global capability in capturing, processing and delivering IP video that is second to none.”

NEW DELHI: Even more than a month of bidding and still the 3G auction shows no signs of stopping. However, it has slowed down to a certain extent.

Delhi, which had reigned over the auction in the first few days, came back to the top with a bid of Rs 31559.7 million even as the total bid stood at just over Rs 161 billion on the 32nd day at the end of 176 rounds today. Mumbai closed at Rs 30589.2 million.
 
Andhra Pradesh closed at Rs 13327.7 million, Gujarat clocked Rs 10548.7 million, West Uttar Pradesh went up to Rs 5039.3 million and Kolkata clocked Rs 5076.8 million. East Uttar Pradesh rose to Rs 3574 million, Rajasthan was at Rs 3085.3 million, Kerala was at Rs 2973.3 million, Punjab closed at Rs 2779.3 million, Bihar rose to Rs 1898.1 million, Orissa rose sizably to Rs 904.7 million, the North-East rose to Rs 423 million, Assam went up to Rs 410.7 million, and Himachal Pradesh was at Rs 351 million.

The bids for some states remained unchanged: Karnataka at Rs 15642.7 million, Tamil Nadu at Rs 14649.4 million, the rest of Maharashtra at Rs 12453.7 million, Madhya Pradesh at Rs 2583.6 million, Haryana at Rs 2225.8 million, West Bengal at Rs 1236.3 million, and Jammu and Kashmir at Rs 303 million. 
With no applications for price increment for tomorrow, the bids for eleven service centres are expected to slow down. These are Mumbai, rest of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam, the North East and Jammu and Kashmir. Service centres like Orissa and Himachal Pradesh are unlikely to see much increase with the price increment for tomorrow’s bid at less than Rs 100,000.

The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecommunications and Vodafone Essar.
 

MUMBAI: GlobeCast will be present at the television and mobile technology event, CommunicAsia 2010, in Singapore next month.

It will provide live demonstrations of Media Asset Management, information on live 3D events, as well as the latest on new satellite capacity for broadcast delivery in the region.

GlobeCast, a content management and delivery company, and its sister company Netia will meet with both broadcasters and telecom companies. 
 
Live events in 3D and 2D: Over the past year, GlobeCast has delivered the world’s first live 3D fashion show from Burberry’s catwalk at London Fashion Week to customer events in Paris, New York, Dubai and Tokyo as well as an opera production of Don Giovanni to cinemas in Europe – via GlobeCast’s global satellite and fiber network. In addition to these innovative projects, GlobeCast is also gearing up for a slate of major live news and sporting events in 2010 such as the World Cup in South Africa, Asian Games, G20 Summit in Korea, and Commonwealth Games in India.

New satellite capacity in Asia and worldwide: In recent months, GlobeCast has also increased significant capacity on major satellites to meet coverage needs for new and established channels looking to expand their coverage, as well as for occasional use for key events. In Asia, GlobeCast has most notably acquired significant space on Asiasat 5, offering prime coverage of two-thirds of the world’s population spanning across 53 countries in the Asia-Pacific. GlobeCast offers coverage on some 28 satellites worldwide, reaching all key television markets.

Media Asset Management: live demonstrations to help simplify workflow: Broadcasters, content providers and telcos will be treated to a live demo at the booth by GlobeCast and NETIA which will illustrate the operations of a tapeless environment from ingest to quality control, editing, archiving and multi-platform delivery, thus allowing potential users to monetise content and simplify their workflows. In addition to content transport, GlobeCast provides broadcasters with a range of digital media asset management solutions, including playout, making GlobeCast a one-stop-shop for broadcasters and other content owners.
 
Netia is a content management software company and member of the GlobeCast Group, is at the heart of GlobeCast’s Mam solutions. Its versatile Manreo media asset management (Mam) system addresses the needs of broadcasters and telcos alike. Most recently, Manreo served as the basis for leading telecom company Orange’s content management system (CMS), designed to support Telco operators’ end-to-end media management and distribution needs. The CMS enables Orange to store, manage, and distribute content to any service provider or multimedia platform.

Global content, WebTV: In addition to the above highlights, GlobeCast will be available to discuss its recent successes aggregating and distributing major networks such as top Bollywood channel B4U, NHK World and Fashion|One TV to Pay-TV operators worldwide. As content owners seek to expand their reach to global audiences, GlobeCast also assists broadcasters to increase their audience via the web.

MUMBAI: Five years old and already recording 2 billion video views a day. That‘s an awe-inspiring performance if there ever was. We are talking about YouTube which is celebrating its fifth anniversary today.

Its performance has made it the third most popular site in the world as on date, founded by three Paypal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. In fact, Karim posted the first video on Youtube.
 
The site attracted millions of dollars in venture capital funding before being bought over by Google in a $1.65 billion deal in 2007.

Hurley, however, would like YouTube to get past some hurdles. He told BBC that users spend just 15 minutes on the site while they spend five hours a day on TV.

It was hardly seven months ago that the company announced that it had crossed the billion video views milestone. Today almost 24 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute.

The company has content deals with more than 10,000 partners, some of which are even large studios, who have set up their own Youtube channels.
 
YouTube says it has launched a special channel for users to upload their special You Tube moments. “Today, we‘re celebrating our birthday by launching a channel full of memorable moments, poignant user stories, celebrity curators and more. Let the videos below serve as an invitation for you to share *your* YouTube story with the world and you could appear on our commemorative channel,” says the post.

And the channel had already attracted in excess of 6,000 subscribers and more than 7,000 comments. Amongst the celebs who had chosen to curate their favourite YouTube videos included Conan ‘O‘ Brien.

From the Indian context, YouTube‘s rising use by fans to post free daily episodes of Indian television shows is worrisome. This happens almost minutes after each episode ends on TV and the best part is that it is clutter free – that is without any commercials.

Generating anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 views each (sometimes even higher), the availability of these episodes on YouTube means that those many domestic viewers are not watching the repeats on TV in case they have missed the first telecast.

Additionally, the views that YouTube is generating from free fan uploaded Indian TV shows could also be cannibalising pay TV revenues from viewers overseas. The site is attracting good traffic for Indian contnet globally and that is evident from the fact that the Indian Premier League cricket series telecast on YouTube got 55 million views – more in the US than in India.

The numbers for Indian TV soap episodes may appear small today for the Indian market, but with YouTube growing in leaps and bounds every day, these may rise exponentially suddenly as broadband spreads within the country. Deal making for channels and content creators with YouTube could then end up being a complicated exercise as TV and entertainment studios in the US learnt a couple of years ago.

YouTube, Indian broadcasters and producers need to think about this as the video site celebrates its fifth anniversary.

MUMBAI: Hathway Cable & Datacom, which had raised Rs 4.80 billion this year via its initial public offering (IPO), has come out with a mixed bag of results to show for FY ‘10.

For the whole fiscal, the MSO (multi system operator) has managed to reduce its net loss to Rs 815.50 million, from Rs 1.06 billion in previous fiscal. Its bottomline was eroded to a certain extent thanks to higher amortisation and depreciation costs at Rs 899.64 million up from Rs 816.61 million, in the previous year.
 
Hathway‘s net income for the fiscal stood almost flat at Rs 4 billion, as compared to Rs 3.96 billion a year ago, a marginal increase of 1.1 per cent

Hathway has also managed to reduce its expenditure this financial year. Another positive sign for the company is that profit before interest, other income, depreciation and exceptional items at Rs 705.1 million has increased by 8.7 per cent. 
 
The company disclosed that it has so far utilised Rs 105.6 million of the IPO proceeds, while Rs 4.10 billion has been invested in mutual funds and the rest is deposited with banks.
The depreciation, amortisation and impairment expenditure of the company at Rs 899.65 million is very high, and has in fact gone up from last year by approximately Rs 80 million.

The company noted that it has suffered a major setback in Chennai, where it lost subscribers to competition because of “unforeseen conditions,” leaving it to recover its equipments.

For the quarter ended 31 March 2010, Hathway posted a net loss of Rs 99.34 million, on an income of Rs 987 million. If it continues with this performance, its profit & loss statement is likely to be stained a little less red by the time the current fiscal ends.

The company has Rs 4.1 billion in mutual funds, which if their NAVs rise could be a major contributing factor to its other income in the coming quarter, and may prove to be its turning point. However, one has to wait and watch how the markets and the company‘s investments perform, before drawing any conclusions.

A profit of Rs 55.8 million after depreciation for the last quarter of fiscal 2010 is also a good sign for the company, and apparently investors are playing a wait and watch game, irrespective of the overall losses sustained by it. The Hathway closing price on Friday 14 May was Rs 205.90.