Microsoft COO outlines multimedia blueprint in Taipei

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on May 3, 2006. It reports that Kevin Turner, Chief Operation Officer of the United States-based software giant Microsoft, recently outlined a future blueprint for the multimedia industry at a press conference in Taipei.

Microsoft's Windows Media Engineering Center is currently cooperating with many well-known industry partners in Taiwan, including Arima Communications, Alpha Networks, High Tech Computer Corp., Sunplus, and the Industrial Technology Research Institute's Electronics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratories. Such cooperation is on product and device research and development, which ranges from IC design, forward versatile disc (FVD) technology, multimedia phone, TV mobile phone, set-top-box (STB), and digital media adopter (DMA). It is estimated that these next-generation multimedia products and devices will create millions of business opportunities in digital life, which will in turn lead Taiwan's multimedia industry to a new milestone.

In Turner's words: "Making everyone enjoy the entertainment experience of digital multimedia with any devices anywhere and anytime is the vision and blueprint of Microsoft in research and development of digital multimedia technology. Microsoft's Digital Media Department is designed to work closely with partners to develop multimedia contents and various devices that meet industrial standards of the next generation."

According to Turner, Microsoft's Windows Media Engineering Center has already built up a close and cooperative relationship with industry partners in Taiwan. A great number of products have been jointly created for a new lifestyle of digital media. For example, in the past two years, a number of collaborative projects - such as the Microsoft Technology Center and the RFID Center - have created nearly NT$3 billion in product value. Microsoft Taiwan is expected to keep on cooperating with the government in Taiwan in the near future, in order to assist its Taiwanese partners and offer Taiwan a greater stage for the development on the global market.

According to Taiwan's Arima Communications, the future mobile phone is not only a two-way communication device, but will also become a device that can receive public information and link with PC, TV and digital home facilities.

Meanwhile, according to Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp., the company was the first to introduce palm-sized PCs based on the Windows Mobile operating system. The company also unveiled the world's first Microsoft Live Digital Mobile TV.