Below is text of a multimedia presentation delivered at global industry forums, management boards of some of the world’s largest media conglomerates, and international government think tanks.
This article is reprinted with permission from the CARF newsletter, December 1994.
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It was almost three years ago that Apple had a vision for the New Media Age: to establish a dialogue between the leading international corporations and visionaries from each of the converging industries. To achieve this vision, Apple sponsored a special forum: The Hakone Conference in Hakone, Japan.
Our goal was to get these people from all over the world in one place - diverse companies such as Mondadori, SONY, NBC, and Motorola. The dialogues that were started at this conference have developed into strong relationships between the attendees, and some have gone on to form alliances and joint ventures.
This is just one way in which Apple has helped to spearhead the development of New Media and move the industry from vision into action.
It was at Hakone that the visionary author George Gilder had an exciting vision to share: "...within 10 years we will have the processing power of a Cray supercomputer on our desktops."
As we harness this additional power, it will drive us down the Information Superhighway. But, will it be useful to the consumer?
Also at Hakone, Francesco Tato, the CEO of Finivest/Mondadori, Italy's largest publishing group, discussed the need for standardization: "...Once we have an agreed platform then the editorial...investment can take place..."
Since then, Mondadori has been making significant investment in New Media. Mondadori recently launched an ISDN version of one of their best-selling magazines EPOCA. By ISDN, the full magazine is available online one day earlier than the newsstand version.
I think the video ["Power is..." TV commercial featuring Oliver Stone shown at seminar] speaks clearly to both Apple's vision and action in the Multimedia Age - to provide the customer with more power. Power to communicate and power to achieve their visions.
Everyone agrees that multimedia is causing a revolution, but many of us are baffled when we're asked to invest in new systems or reconfigure our existing systems to take advantage of multimedia content and services.
Today I would like to let multimedia speak for itself by demonstrating a few examples of multimedia content, and showing you some new technology that will make the use of multimedia easier than it has ever been.
But first, I would like to set the context in which to appreciate Apple's approach to multimedia.
The convergence of industries is something that has been getting a lot of press lately. But this is not a "new" movement.
This convergence has been happening over a long period of time. Apple conducted a study along with Harvard University a few years ago, looking at the issue of convergence of previously distinct industries in the U.S. to help give us a preliminary roadmap as to where multimedia and new media currently stood, and how they were changing over time. From this study and others like it, it was becoming clear that Apple had a role to play in this process as a facilitator and catalyser.
Convergence
One of the reasons The Convergence has been getting a lot of attention is the recent worldwide explosion of mergers, joint ventures and strategic alliances that have been forming between large corporations within these converging industries.
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