Price Waterhouse and 3Com Corporation have announced an agreement to collaborate on a series of entertainment technology initiatives focused on using digital technology to better manage entertainment and media content. Targeting companies in the entertainment, media and communications industries, the collaborative relationship will be highlighted by the joint design and demonstration of digital asset management solutions at the 3Com Multimedia Lab, Santa Clara, California, and connected to branch sites in Los Angeles and other major cities around the world.
"This `convergence collaboration` provides Price Waterhouse and 3Com with the opportunity to explore new territory in the digital asset management arena and to bring real E-business solutions to bear on the merging worlds of content, communications and technology," says Steven Abraham, global managing partner of entertainment and media consulting for Price Waterhouse`s Entertainment, Media and Communications (EMC) Group. "As entertainment and media companies increasingly turn to digital technology for help in managing their valuable content, Price Waterhouse and 3Com can provide them with a well-conceived road map to guide their digital asset management endeavors."
"With Price Waterhouse`s expertise in entertainment and media business consulting and 3Com`s leadership in high-bandwidth communications networking, we have a tremendously powerful combination," says Janice Roberts, vice president of global marketing for 3Com Corporation. "The digital asset management demonstration center provides a unique testbed for the broadband digital technology solutions that will shape the global media marketplace into the 21st century."
The demonstration centre will allow Price Waterhouse and 3Com to develop and test local area and long-distance network solutions for the collaboration, distribution and management of high-bandwidth entertainment and media content, explains 3Com SA`s regional director, Buddie Ceronie.
"It will showcase digital asset management solutions applied to common entertainment business processes such as rights management, secure use and reuse of intellectual property and development of worldwide marketing materials, among others," he says. "Any company working with large amounts of media content - including the major entertainment companies, broadcast and cable networks, print media companies and the new emerging Web entertainment and information companies - will benefit from the technology showcased at the demonstration centre."
Scenarios such as the high-speed delivery of video and audio for a TV commercial, selection of photos from a full library of content or real-time collaboration on content creation will be simulated and judged for their efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The demonstration centre will be connected to digital asset management test labs in Los Angeles and other major cities around the world to simulate global applications.
Ceronie points out that currently, major entertainment and media companies are realizing the importance of global content distribution systems to support their internal production needs and virtual networks to link with creative resources all over the world.
"Important factors such as rising production costs, the necessity to reduce time to market, the potential for new revenue streams through expanded licensing and cross merchandising, and increased complexity in the area of intellectual property rights management are driving this industry to seek new ways of doing business," he adds.
"Digital asset management is near the top of our corporate strategic agenda, and it has helped establish our company as a leading player in the application of digital technology for the graphic arts industry," says Dennis Meyer, vice president of marketing and planning for Banta Corp., a technology and market leader in printing and digital imaging. "Through our relationship with Price Waterhouse, we have created Centrus, an enterprise-wide digital content management solution that streamlines production processes and creates collaborative asset management systems."
A number of companies will provide hardware, software and their expertise for test and use in the digital asset management demonstration center. Executives will have the opportunity to view software solutions that have been evaluated by Price Waterhouse and 3Com and deemed best-of-breed for entertainment and media applications.
Price Waterhouse has a rich and extensive history of providing business consulting expertise to the entertainment industry and is at the forefront of testing, developing and implementing digital asset management solutions for entertainment and media business issues. 3Com is an industry leader in developing networking hardware and software solutions which are required to support the effective communication and distribution of high-bandwidth data. Both companies have taken leadership roles in offering state-of-the-art business solutions to companies in the converging content, communications and technology industries.
Editors Note
Price Waterhouse, a business advisory and consulting organization with 60,000 professionals around the world, helps its clients develop and execute integrated solutions to build value, manage risk and improve global performance. The partners of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand have voted to merge their worldwide organizations. The merger has received regulatory approvals and the global organization will begin operations as PricewaterhouseCoopers on July 1, 1998.
3Com Corporation enables individuals and organisations worldwide to communicate and share information and resources at anytime from anywhere. As one of the world`s preeminent suppliers of data, voice and video communications technology, 3Com has delivered networking solutions to more than 100 million customers worldwide.
With global reach and local touch, the company provides enterprises, network service providers and carriers, small businesses and consumers with comprehensive, innovative information access products and system solutions for building intelligent, reliable and high performance local and wide area networks. 3Com has worldwide revenues of more than $5.6 billion and employs approximately 13,000 people in 45 countries.
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