HAVi Organization Announces a Host of New Member Companies At Consumer Electronics Show
The HAVi Organization announced the entrance of over a dozen new member companies at its first industry event at CES 2000. The HAVi Organization was formed by eight leading Consumer Electronics companies that jointly developed specifications for a home entertainment network, providing plug and enjoy convenience and interoperability to connected digital home devices. Since the formation of the HAVi Organization in November 1999, 15 companies have become members. These companies include Digital Harmony Technologies, Loewe, Kenwood, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Samsung Electronics, Sanyo, Seiko Epson, Sun Microsystems, Tao Group, QNX Software Systems, Vivid Logic, Wind River Systems, Yaskawa Information Systems. Numerous other companies and organizations also have expressed their support for HAVi, or their intention to become a member. ""We are very pleased with the interest and industry support that we received so quickly after the establishment of the HAVi Organization,"" said Cees Jan Koomen, President of Philips Home Networking and Chairman of the HAVi Board. ""We are confident that with this level of support HAVi will soon become the standard for the home AV entertainment network."" The HAVi founding members comprise eight leading consumer electronics companies, which have worked together in a co-operative project over more than two years to develop the present standard. They are: Grundig AG, Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), Royal Philips Electronics, Sharp Corp., Sony Corp., Thomson Multimedia and Toshiba Corp. A contribution has also been made to the specification by Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) in co-operation with Matsushita. The mission of the HAVi Organization is to promote the adoption of the HAVi architecture and to develop interconnecting ""bridges"" with other home networking standards such as Jini technology and Universal Plug & Play (UPnP). HAVi is a multi-brand standard intended primarily for the networking of digital AV home entertainment products. Devices connected in a HAVi network can interoperate, which means that they can share each other's resources and functionality across the network. With a HAVi network, users are no longer faced with the complex set-up and operation of many separate devices and remote controls. All they will have to do is enter the task they want to perform, and HAVi will do the rest. HAVi features easy ""plug-and-enjoy"" functionality and uses an underlying IEEE 1394 digital interface (i.LINKô or FireWireÆ). Further information about HAVi can be obtained from the Organization's Web site: www.havi.org. HAVi Membership Companies Digital Harmony Technologies, Inc ""HAVi provides a key piece of the interoperability puzzle for Digital Harmony's OEM customers such as Harman, Denon, and Onkyo,"" said Greg Bartlett, President and CEO Digital Harmony Technologies, Inc. ""We are happy to bring our standards-development experience, hardware reference designs, and product certification services to the HAVi family."" Kenwood ""Kenwood, the first company to demonstrate a dual-zone 1394 solution at the CEDIA Show in 1999, is enthusiastic about joining HAVI. Our participation will ensure interoperability of our future 1394-enabled products with those of other manufacturers,"" commented Brian Towne, the National Product Manager for Kenwood USA Corporation. Mitsubishi Electric Mr. Tsuiki, General Manager of Imaging Systems Laboratory, Mitsubishi Electric, said, ""We expect that HAVi plays a major role in the home A/V network environment. We would like to actively participate in the HAVi organization and develop HAVi compliant products."" QNX Software Systems ""HAVi complements our strategy of allowing home-entertainment devices to share resources seamlessly, without any effort on the part of the consumer,"" said Linda Campbell, vice president of strategic alliances at QNX Software Systems. ""And because it bridges the walls created by proprietary networking protocols, it will accelerate consumer adoption of next-generation home entertainment products. Appliance manufacturers, independent software vendors, and commercial retailers will all benefit."" Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd ""It is expected that HAVi will be a good connectivity solution for digital A/V devices. We are pleased to collaborate with other HAVi members,"" said In-Kyung Ryu, Senior Managing Director, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Seiko Epson Corporation ""We believe that the interconnection specification amongst Home Networked devices are clarified by the inauguration of HAVi Organization. It is desired that the unified application environment, where not only A/V devices but also PC peripheral devices, is to be established early centering around the Promoters,"" said Haruo Nakamura, Senior General Manager of IJ Products Planning & Design Center, Seiko Epson Corporation. Sun Microsystems ""Sun's pleased to have the opportunity to become a member of the HAVi Organization,"" said Mike Clary, Vice President, Business Development, Sales and Services, Sun's Software Products and Platforms. ""HAVi and Jini connection technology compliment each other with Jini technology providing a bridge between HAVi's environment to broader range of devices, networks and the Internet."" Tao Group Francis Charig, Chairman of Tao Group, commented: ""HAVi has set itself objectives which we fully endorse. Providing a consistent infrastructure and fully utilizing Java(TM)-based technologies to provide the most compelling content, including interactive content, to all manner of networked consumer devices, even ones with low power and small memory capacity, can only benefit consumer and manufacturer alike. Tao has spent years providing award winning and differentiated products focusing on this specific area, we are now bringing those products to market and the support of HAVi is a natural extension to our existing activities."" Vivid Logic, Inc ""As a leading independent developer of IEEE 1394, HAVi and HAVi compliance software, VividLogic is excited to join the HAVi organization and work closely with the HAVi promoters to further refine and develop the HAVi and HAVi compliance specification,"" said Shiva Patibanda, CEO, VividLogic Inc. Wind River Systems ""The HAVi organization has done a tremendous job of bringing leading electronics manufacturers and software developers together to develop this standard that meets the digital home networking needs of today and far into the future,"" said Curt Schacker, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Development for Wind River Systems. ""Our participation in HAVi maintains our position as a leading provider of embedded software technologies for the digital consumer market, a position we have achieved through years of innovative design, close attention to the needs of embedded developers and their customers, and a strong commitment to the development of standards including HAVi, IEEE-1394, TCP/IP, and Java."" Yaskawa Information Systems Co., LTD ""We think HAVi is a simple, effective, expandable, and important technical framework to realize the interoperability between home A/V networked devices, so we expect that HAVi plays a major role in the home network,"" said Takashi Takahashi, President and CEO, Yaskawa Information Systems Co., LTD. ""To contribute the growth of HAVi, we supply software products and various kinds of services to any manufactures that produce HAVi-compliant devices."".