INTERVIEW: Swisscom Looks To Innovation To Win Customers
November 24 2010 - 11:23AM
Dow Jones News
Swisscom AG (SGSN.VX) Wednesday unveiled some of the new
technologies it hopes will give it a competitive advantage over
market newcomers like Google Inc (GOOG) and Apple Inc (AAPL) in the
Internet Protocol television market.
The Swiss telecoms company hopes new products will help it
increase subscribers for SwisscomTV, its Internet Protocol TV
product, and prevent customers defecting to other players when they
launch in Switzerland probably next year.
"You cannot stand still in this industry, too many things
happen, and we don't want to be left behind," Britta Reinhardt,
Swisscom's head of business innovation told Dow Jones Newswires in
an interview at the company's innovation day in Berne, where it
exhibits new technologies and products.
Among the projects on display, not all of which will eventually
go to market, was Person Recognition TV, which uses an internal
camera to recognise who is sitting in front of the television and
personalizes the experience accordingly.
Another service called VIPER enables customers to communicate
through high definition video on their home television set.
The company thinks the importance of television will increase
and that video calls on TV will bring families together.
"You can feel like people are there in the same room with you
and share moments in their life," Reinhardt said.
Swisscom, which is collaborating with Intel Corp (INTC) and
Skype on some projects, believes a larger range of services is key
to increasing customer loyalty.
The TV packages could also increase the number of subscribers to
Swisscom TV which has nearly doubled its subscribers in the last 12
months to 358,000.
Reinhardt said one of the technologies most likely to be
launched is a mobile secure identification system to go in the SIM
cards of mobile phones.
She said Swisscom is working with rivals Sunrise Communications
AG and Orange, the Swiss unit of France Telecom (FTE), to develop
the system and advanced prototypes are already being tested.
The system, which could enter the market next year, aims to
provide third parties with easy to use authentication, encryption
and signing capabilities and could be used for services such as
Internet banking.
Other products included a digital signage in a box, which allows
retailers to personalise their shop window display to their
customers and offer personalised offers when they are spotted by a
digital camera.
-By John Revill, Dow Jones Newswires; +41 43 443 8042 ;
john.revill@dowjones.com
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