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Five Questions: Harris Corporation

We pose the same questions to key broadcast vendors

By Charlie White

What's the state of the broadcast industry today? We asked key broadcast product vendors the same five specific questions about their products, customers and growth areas they see for their companies and the broadcast industry in general.  We now simultaineously publish the answers of all the companies that responded to our query, in hopes of giving you a good idea of the issues on the minds of broadcast equipment suppliers circa late 2006. Here is the response from Harris Corporation.

1. Tell us why your biggest-selling product is so successful.

Harris is successful because we have the broadest offering (point products, workflow solutions, hardware/software, services and support) to provide all the solutions our customers require. It is no longer enough to have great point products, even if they are ?big sellers.  Customers want products to work together in workflow solutions better than a collection of products from our competitors, and this is what Harris is dedicated to providing. Today, broadcasters are demanding total content delivery solutions ? and Harris offerings encompass solutions for ingest, digital asset management, traffic, scheduling, automation, TV and radio transmitters. With the addition of Leitch products serving professional and broadcast video companies, Harris also offers systems for news, post-production, branding and graphics, storage and servers, routing and distribution, signal processing, signal management and test and measurement.
 

2. What do you hear your customers characterizing as their major problem that's solved by your products?

The worldwide digital media marketplace is undergoing rapid transition, driven largely by digital technology and the change this technology enables.  HDTV, analog-to-digital conversion, satellite radio, IPTV and mobile video technologies are exploding, and in this fluid environment, customers want more than a supplier ? they want a strategic technology partner. Our integrated, one company approach meets the needs of all our customers ? from those requiring hardware or software product upgrades to those looking to reap the benefits of a fully integrated workflow solution.

3. What do you see as the next growth area for the broadcast industry?

Mobile TV is poised to be a big area of growth for the broadcast industry in the coming years. Beyond our leadership in transmission platforms for mobile TV, Harris has been developing a broad range of content delivery solutions for mobile TV, including platforms for DVB-H, FLO and T-DMB applications. The recent acquisition of Leitch Technology adds a range of servers, routers, switchers and processing equipment to our video encoding and distribution systems, providing the infrastructure for bringing content into the mobile TV headend. Meanwhile, equipment from the Harris Software Systems business unit adds a complement of broadband software and distribution equipment for network management, traffic scheduling, digital asset management and ad insertion.

4. What's the biggest growth area for your company in particular?

Although HDTV has been receiving the most attention, IPTV also presents a wealth of opportunity and will see significant growth in the foreseeable future. Harris is poised to be the comprehensive platform provider for IPTV.   Harris IPTV solutions provide a backbone for broadcasters to deliver interactive, rich media across broadband like never before: cross delivery ad campaigns, viewer-selectable program playout and other network based services.

Harris provides a set of integrated applications?some from us and some from our partners?that offers a consistent user experience and that provides intelligent points of integration along the content delivery chain to support the new media business models.  We are executing (where others cannot) because we span the chain from origination to delivery. More importantly, however, everyone here can see the end game for our industry. To support the multi-service, multi-format delivery model, customers have to have increasingly granular control of both their content and their network. The path were taking?our vision?is enabling them to uniformly identify and control content from its point of origin (or ingest) out through delivery. Harris offerings include H-Class automation, for content management, and CCS for network management.

5. How do you view the current state of HD conversion industry-wide? Is it a done deal or do we have a ways to go, and what's your company doing to assist in that switch? 

Broadcasters are looking for affordable, format-flexible solutions to see them through the transition; they want platforms that will enable them to create a streamlined workflow from production to transmission in both SD and HD formats.   Harris is focused on delivering flexible, multi-format solutions that make an investment in future-proofed equipment, even if customers are currently only utilizing the SD functionality, for example. Harris goal is to help broadcasters achieve greater productivity, reduced costs, new revenue streams and assured communications no matter where they reside on the HD conversion continuum.