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The continual merging of audio, video, computing
and telecommunications has led to new growth and opportunity within the
business and leisure marketplaces. With many areas of media production now
embracing the full impact of digital processing using computer-controlled
interfaces, competition is increasing significantly between a wide range of
once disparate organisations and businesses, to grow into new and broader
multimedia markets. Throughout the 1990s, media interface, central computer
control, broadband communication networks, and the integration of high-quality
digital audio and video, will constitute one of the fastest growth areas within
business communication and general media presentation.
Clearly,
multimedia is not a market, but a description of a communication process, by
which information is presented in a multisensory way. Business presentation,
videoconferencing, point-of-sale and information, interactive training, public
presentation, business TV, interactive TV, games systems, enhanced computing,
global networks and broadband telecommunications capabilities, are all
applications that use the word `multimedia' to describe their own method of
information delivery. Unfortunately, this explanation is often inadequate and,
because of its generic nature, confusing to the customer.
Consequently,
to promote a full understanding of both real market applications and the hype
that surrounds the `M' word, this report contains over 80 case studies of
businesses within the retail, financial, communications, training, public
utility and manufacturing sectors that are currently using multimedia elements
in their own way, as an advanced communication medium. It also contains details
of over 120 business alliances between key hardware, software and
communications carriers, within the broad IT, computer, broadcast and
telecommunications market, as both manufacturers and consumers seek to map out
their visions of the future and the role of multimedia within the information
superhighway.
Together, they form a vast melting pot of interwoven
industries and technologies merging through common interface and information
need. Unfortunately, this in turn has created a marketplace that has become
heavily `jargon' and `standard' oriented as each industry sector attempts to
impose its core working practices on the others in an effort to establish a
dominant market position. In some markets, this has resulted in an over-hyped
interface and, to a certain extent consumer apathy, borne out of a confused
marketplace which is faced with coming to terms with the real-life benefits of
multimedia-based technology. For this reason, the first wave of interactive
CD-ROM systems seems thus far to have failed in capturing the public's
imagination.
However, the construction of the information
superhighway, and its access through a myriad of interlinked computer/TV
networks and broadband communications carriage, has serious implications on all
areas of business and leisure pursuit which are hard to ignore. Its impact will
vary tremendously from staffing and employment issues; through teleworking,
on-line business information and videoconferencing, to product sales; using
electronic distribution methods, home shopping, interactive TV services and
point-of-sale kiosks. It is, therefore, vitally important that organisations
put aside their preconceptions of the word `multimedia' and continue to look
beneath the surface, gather intelligence and make a concerted effort to
understand fully and challenge the implications of this vast communication
change to their business.
The second thing that this report attempts to
demonstrate is that there will never be an all-encompassing multimedia `killer'
application or solution. To understand the use of multimedia is for a company
to ask itself where it hurts and whether a multimedia-based solution will stop
it hurting. This may range from shifting 50 percent of the workforce into their homes
and giving them advanced communication systems, e.g. videoconferencing desktop
terminals, linked via ISDN to the head office, to tailored POS vending machines
on the High Street giving increased retail impact and stock co-ordination at
considerably less cost than a physical outlet with staff. Like the word
multimedia itself, its application to a particular company or business is
defined by that company's own perspective of enhanced communication needs. The
rest is just choosing the most appropriate hardware or software to meet those
needs and this report outlines all the current leading-edge multimedia
technologies in each field.
Multimedia and its application within
business will continue to be a constantly moving and evolving collection of
technologies, standards and strategies, that are likely to change almost on a
daily basis. This report contains everything you need to know until July 1994.
If, however, you wish to be kept up-to-date with the latest developments please
contact Key Note.
Text © 1994 Key Note
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