Page 28 - The Channel Issue 2 2010

THE CHANNEL | INTERVIEW

ere at ADB we feel that, somewhere along the line, the industry has forgotten some of the basics about TV. The basics are simple things – when you switch it on, it should start working very quickly. When you press the button on the remote control the set top box should respond – now, not in a second. It should change channel as quickly as possible, not in four to eight seconds. We believe that in an HD world, we should deliver a great experience to the user as well - even just pressing the buttons on your remote control should make you smile and not be something that is a pain to go through. And that's where we are trying to make everything about the use of our product intuitive, fast, pleasurable.

How do you stay ahead of the competition?

We have 729 people in the company from 21 different countries. Of those over 500 are software engineers, mainly based in Poland and the Ukraine, but we also have R&D in Taiwan and the US. We tend to park our R&D centres near the very best technical universities, and every year we hold software engineering contests [to attract the best university students]. Of course for us this is fantastic because we effectively get 3,000 examples of the best piece of work from some of the brightest

WITHOUTTHEPAIN

Just pressing the buttons on your remote control should make you smile

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people around, and you can bet that we hire quite a few of those.

Where does ADB figure in the hierarchy of STB companies?

I have no idea what number we are in terms of quantity. We don't do entry level products. In fact last year more than 85% of our products were high end – we tend to focus on that to maintain our margins and that seems to be working for us. Last year we grew and made profits again despite the recession.

What's new, product-wise?

Among the latest is a three-way hybrid digital TV platform that enables consumers to access video from three separate delivery networks – digital satellite, digital terrestrial and IP and for which we won an award at IPTVWorld Forum. All our know-how built up over the years went into this. It has a real-time on-screen messaging system that enables the operator to communicate directly with an individual subscriber, and on-screen invoicing that eliminates the need for paper.

Does the consumer see the ADB brand?

In short: no. ADB primarily works with pay-TV operators and one of the key differentiators between ourselves and our competition is that we do not try and compete with our customers for the attention of the end user. We try to deliver integrated solutions to our pay-TV

customers and then let them brand it. In retail, it's obviously different. We make sure that we aren't competing with our customers or potential customers, we have a different brand which is called i-CAN and that brand you will see in markets where we are active in retail. So far that's Italy and we just launched in the UK in May with the i-CAN Easy HD hybrid receiver for Freeview HD and catch-up TV services.

Which are your markets?

Essentially any market where the operators are willing to look at advanced services. Just because a market has had digital TV for a while doesn’t necessarily mean it's going to be the place that has the most advanced services. When we launched HD products with ITI in Poland, nobody believed that that was going to fly in a market where the ARPU is so low and people don't have a lot of disposable income. It turned out that this was complete nonsense – Poland has been one of our most advanced rollouts anywhere.

ADB's business is not just products though, but selling know-how?

We design, develop, manufacture and integrate advanced technology products and systems mostly for pay-TV markets around the world, and our customers are cable, satellite, terrestrial and IPTV operators, as well as the retail markets that we are involved in. We are one of the very few companies

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28 | ISSUE 2 2010 | THE CHANNEL

Swiss-based company ADB designs, develops, manufactures and integrates advanced technology products and services mostly for pay-TV markets around the world. ADB's VP of Strategy, with specific focus on middleware and consumer experience, is Paul Bristow who just by accident has the perfect background for the world of digital TV. Here he talks about the secret recipe for a high end set top box and how ADB makes digital TV more enjoyable for consumers

DIGITAL TV

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