IBM to address region's digital media challenges at CABSAT 2005 exhibition

Partnering with major market players, IBM will showcase some of the industry's broadest range of digital media technologies that will help publishers, TV and radio stations, advertising agencies as well as large enterprises manage, store and work with huge amounts of digital data in real time, easily and cost effectively.

IBM will also be speaking at the CABSAT conference that is taking place on the 9th March 2005 in conjunction with the exhibition where Garron Baines, partner and EMEA broadcast industry leader, media and entertainment, IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS), will cover a session on new approaches to digital news archiving.

"Two years ago, IBM embarked on the Middle East's first Digital Media Roadshow taking it through some of the region's most important media hubs and introducing a broad range of innovative solutions to the market.

International experts from IBM addressed important issues for the future development of locally produced broadcast media, entertainment media, advertising, publishing and more," said Takreem El-Tohamy, general manager of IBM Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan. "Today, we are bringing much more. Using innovative technologies and open-standards, IBM's digital media solutions have placed companies in this region at the forefront of technology adoption not only in the Middle East but across the world. We look forward to sharing these customer experiences with visitors at the show."

Located in hall six of the exhibition centre, the IBM stand will be divided into four distinct zones, including Digital Content Creation, Digital Content Management, Digital Content Distribution and Digital Content Infrastructure, and will showcase some of the latest digital media solutions that will provide a new dimension of space for regional media professionals to expand, explore and develop freely while supporting them with a technology backbone that allows for seamless content management, storage, archival and retrieval.

"Our media solution offerings have considerable productivity and cost benefits not only for organisations that use them but Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), such as Ardendo and Brainwaves that work closely with us to develop unique applications that are specific to various segments of the industry, whether it be for radio stations, broadcasters, web publishers, visual effects producers or animators," continued El-Tohamy.

Stand visitors will be able to talk to regional and international experts, as well as see detailed demonstrations on major regional and international implementations, including the multi-million dollar project that IBM announced last year with Egypt's Rotana, the renowned music production and distribution company, to digitise, store and manage its library of Arabic music, 1300 feature films and 5000 multimedia clips that would allow for the broadcasting of new TV services. Outside from the region, IBM will show demonstrations on how Tandberg Television has adopted the triple play concept where a service provider offers telephony, Internet data services, and TV/video services over a single network, and is providing open solutions for the digital broadcasting of audio, data and video across various networks including broadband, cable, satellite, terrestrial, IP and telecom.