HONG KONG (02/18/2000) - Liberate Technologies Inc., the Silicon Valley-based reincarnation of the Network Computer Inc. (NCI) spin-off formed by Oracle Corp. and Netscape Communications Corp., has turned its sights to Hong Kong, where it is meeting with telecommunications and Internet firms to lay the foundation for a client software platform that merges TVs with the Internet.
In an interview with Computerworld Hong Kong during a visit here earlier this month, Liberate President and CEO Mitchell Kertzman made it clear that he's trying to seed his software as broadly as possible.
"Here in Hong Kong, as much as anywhere, you see examples of companies branching out of their traditional niches: Telephone companies offer video; cable companies offer data and Internet; wireless companies get into all of those businesses," Kertzman said. "So we're having discussions with virtually all of (Hong Kong's) telecommunications companies in those areas about using our software."
Kertzman, the founder of Powersoft who later served as CEO of Sybase Corp., took over the reins at NCI in late 1998; the firm reinvented itself as Liberate Technologies last May, and listed on Nasdaq in July.
Software on trial
According to Kertzman, because of the nature of the regulated telecommunications environment here, Liberate is prepared to go the trial route in Hong Kong.
"Unlike in the U.S., where we'll do a major commercial deal with a cable company, here these typically start out as small trials," he said. "We are working to effectively generate and seed as many of these trial efforts with as many network operators as possible."
Liberate has already signed a trial license with Star TV that involves Star's Channel V music video channel, said Hisayoshi Naito, Liberate's Asia-Pacific vice-president of sales.
"What they're wanting to do now is, instead of the consumer watching the video on the air and then hopefully remembering that album when he goes into a record store," Naito said, "now they're embedding inside of the broadcast stream that exact video information -- (on) a CD, video, T-shirt, whatever it is from the artist -- and while you're watching the video, an information thing pops up that says you can buy the CD (or other item) now. We're setting up the infrastructure for the trial right now."
The agreement between Star and Liberate was signed last November, and the trial was originally scheduled to run from November to February. However, Naito said it will be extended "another couple months or so"; Kertzman attributed the need to extend the trial period to "regulatory approval" issues.
Beyond Hong Kong
Kertzman said America Online Inc.'s AOL TV platform in the U.S. is based on Liberate's technology, however, he would not comment on whether Liberate is involved in any such effort with AOL in China. He did note that he had also met with network operators in Beijing and Taiwan during his visit to Greater China.
"One of the things that distinguishes us here in this market is, we do have Chinese-language products, both simplified and traditional Chinese," he said.
Although Liberate has abandoned the hardware business that NCI had been known for, Kertzman said he met with hardware manufacturers in Taiwan and Beijing to pursue partnerships in that area.
"We met with Acer in Taiwan, which makes a lot of set-top boxes; we met with some potential manufacturing partners in Beijing about possibly doing manufacturing of set-top boxes and other devices," he said. "We're trying to proliferate a platform to be as much as possible a standard for devices attached to televisions all over the world."
Liberate is only beginning to establish a physical presence in Asia. According to Naito, the company is setting up a support office in Taiwan in order to be close to the manufacturers there, and it plans to open a sales office in Hong Kong to handle Greater China. And Kertzman is eyeing the region for software engineering as well.
"I think sooner or later we're likely to set up an engineering facility over here. Probably the next place we'll open engineering will be Japan for the Japanese market, and then probably somewhere here (in China)," Kertzman said.
"Beijing or Shanghai might be a good opportunity."