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By Peter Petersen, Director, Business Innovation, Bang & Olufsen, Friday the 16th May 2008 noon. 00:45
In parts of the Danish press declared Bang & Olufsen to be a sinking shot, which does not have modern products and technologies. After the highest turnover and the best financial performance ever, there has been a headwind in the second half, which runs from December to May.
This led to downward revisions and dismissal of the CEO. The Board has now appointed a new, Kalle White Nielsen, who joins in August.
What meetings him when he joins? He meets a developmental role with many facets, which is under continuing development - and not least - outside Denmark. Innovation Center for audio-video is in Secunda. Here implements Idefabrik and Technology Innovation in the early stages of a product / concept is defined to resolution on a real development project.
Development can then be implemented in different internally and through partners. There is own AV-development departments in Struer and Aarhus. A branch under construction in the newly built factory in the Czech Republic. There is a 51 per cent. owned softwarehus in Estonia, which has continued to grow, and an R & D center is under construction in Taiwan. In addition Automotive and ICEpower D departments in Struer and Lyngby.
There is a large team of software and electronics development partners in India and some smaller in Europe and the United States.Finally, there is a team of partners, who develop complete products in the Far East.
The total development capacity is around. 600 engineers and has continued to grow. A growth that draws a kompetenceløft for digitization and software.
The development is due to the market situation was adjusted. It happened in a balance to meet buyers' expectations relevant in the short term and to be surprised with brand new long lasting breakthrough products in the long term.
Much of the criticism has been directed at television product program. It has been trimmed in record time and is ready to transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting, which will replace the analogue network in the autumn of 2009.
DVB-T receivers can be built into all models except one. This applies not only to new products, which are also designed modules to customers who purchased television in recent years. The next generation DVB-T and DVB-C is under development and come onto the market this autumn. It can receive the new MPEG-4 standard, both standard and high definition.
Unfortunately, the gatekeepers of the digital TV network Boxer announced that it will use MPEG4 standard resolution, not in high definition. It will probably disappoint many viewers who have bought or buy TV with flat screen that is HD-Ready, with a resolution of minutes. 720 lines or Full HD, with a resolution of 1,080 lines.
All screens in the B & O products have long HD-Ready. The largest, where Full HD makes a difference, the upgrade to Full HD resolution.There are also other new developments in the pipeline, which improves the image quality of flat screens more like 100 Hz LCD and automatic color control for plasma. They can all be used to view high-definition television in Denmark for example. from this summer's European Football Championships, but the program must come from cable or satellite.
BluRay won the first of the year battle with rival HD-DVD to become the successor to DVD. At that time was running a development project that would deliver a combined solution (BluRay and HD-DVD), it has been changed to a clean BluRay project, which will be launched later this year.
B & O has announced a new audio concept, which combines engineering and software for interactive navigation in digital music in a whole new way. Work on something similar for digital video paradigm of Internet-based television content.
Digital networks for audio and video is another long-term bet, which is part of the focus. It is among others in an Advanced Technology Fund-supported project Multimedia Home Center in Aarhus University, Alexandra Foundation and Architectural Studies in Aarhus.