IDC Conference highlights the changing infoimaging landscape, cont.

Other perspectives

Conference attendees arrived with what they believed to be solid understanding of how digital images impact their business (a vertical/narrow view). They departed with a new perspective (horizontal view) on images and their impact on information technology and commercial markets.

Kodak Chairman and CEO Daniel Carp said infoimaging today is a $385 billion business. David Harding indicated that infoimaging - allowing for technology substitution and price decline over time - could reach $768 billion by 2010.

Industry experts identified opportunities to create economic expansion by interpreting and leveraging their infoimaging offerings.

Consumer and Customer Benefits

Kodak Chairman and CEO Dan Carp called for focusing on end-user benefits before technological superiority.

• "While technology plays a key role in infoimaging, it's important to remember that people are buying the capabilities technology makes possible," he said.
• "The patient whose disease is diagnosed faster doesn't care about pixels or bandwidth. Neither does the grandmother who receives an e-mail photo of her new grandson." (View Dan Carp's complete remarks.)

Pervasive and Relevant

David Gang, Executive Vice President, Product Marketing, America Online, said the AOL infrastructure - among the world's largest -- would be enhanced to accommodate more members' pictures in picture galleries, e-mails, and community spaces.

• "Version 8.0 of America Online (software) will include personal picture gallery capabilities, hometown photoquilts, buddy sharing with pictures, polls, chats and message boards with pictures," Gang said.
• "Our 'You've Got Pictures' service with Kodak is part of an overall story. We will make online photos pervasive and relevant."

Digital Visual Communication

Ron Glaz, program manager, Worldwide Digital Imaging Solutions and Services, IDC, predicted that digital visual communications - a subset of infoimaging - would fuel new vertical applications beyond those consumer enjoy today.

• Among the expected applications: expanded use of "rich digital media" in manufacturing, real estate, engineering, e-commerce, and telecommunications. Glaz indicated he anticipated "instant video messaging" to debut soon.

• He said that current applications - such as picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) used in health care diagnostics - would require increased bandwidth, and prompt more vertical integration.

Beyond Devices

Christopher Chute, Research Manager, Worldwide Digital Imaging Solutions and Services, IDC, described how the services and infrastructure elements of infoimaging held the potential for enormous payoff, now that digital cameras and other devices had become mainstays of infoimaging.

• "What's hindering the market? Today's capture device ecosystem is PC-centric, (but) digital still camera sales (will) drive digital photofinishing. The devices market alone, excluding PDA and other mobile devices, is an $18 billion industry."
• "In the post-device era, the capture device ecosystem will mature. Camera companies need to partner with their film and PC peripherals - to create meaningful partnerships across product lines. This is critical for the long run."

Explore Breakthrough Trends

James Stoffel, Kodak's Chief Technical Officer and Director of Research & Development, pointed to breakthroughs across many technologies - including telecommunications and printing - as keys to the emergence of infoimaging.

• "Images have always played a key role in communication. Innovative combinations of devices, infrastructure, and services and media will drive growth in infoimaging," he said.

• "Unprecedented breakthrough trends across the range of key technologies yield cost for performance benefits never before seen - (and) solutions with breakthrough capabilities owing to these trends and to the convergence of IT and imaging technologies will continue to appear."

Increase Sharing

V. Michael Bove, Jr., Object-Based Media Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, said that the sharing of media and content are on the rise, and online users will soon collaborate on creation and distribution of content. Thus, an increased focus on building "sharing" capability is essential.

• "Sharing must be a transparent, automatic, self-maintaining part of everyday activity - with seamless transition between physical and virtual spaces, and between synchronous and asynchronous communication," Bove said He noted that enhanced connectivity between devices is key. "Sharing must involve no extra effort."
• Bove added that increased sharing of information will depend on improved infrastructure, security, self-management of systems, "invisible" interfaces, and content-creation tools and environments. He demonstrated MIT technologies that interweave digital images with GPS mapping tools, and a community TV experience that enables disparate viewers to see each other while watching a video.

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