BestTV to set up Internet video system in Japan, 31.10.2006
Best Broadband Television Ltd. (BestTV), which provides a solution for setting up and managing video channels on the Internet, has reached an agreement with Japanese investment company Invensys to establish a video Internet platform in that country.
BestTV predicts that the contract will generate $2 million revenue over the next two years, and could grow to tens of millions of dollars as the service expands in Japan. BestTV was founded in 2002. It has mostly focused on developing the technology in recent years. The company has developed an Internet TV platform that is installed in video servers, enabling the management of television channels and video-on-demand (VOD) systems, while providing statistical, billing, and advertising tools.
In the past few years, the company has been able to reach mainly Israeli customers, including Hebrew daily “Ha’aretz”, One sports portal, Yellow Pages (Dapei Zahav) and 360 Channels Ltd. The agreement with Invensys is the company’s first large international deal.
Under the agreement, BestTV and Invensys will launch an Internet television platform using a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) system. BestTV believes that, initially, five million households in Japan that watch the channel for which the service will be provided will join the service.
Source: Globes, Globes Correspondent . . .
The 500-job estimate comes from Eran Harel, managing director of the Harel Hertz Investment House, who specializes in promoting business between Japan and Israel. "Two thirds of the new workers are expected to be from Israel and the rest will come from all over the world," he said.
The companies include Tokyo Electron, Hitachi High Tech Instruments, Hitachi Kokusai Electric, Nikon, DNP, Daifuku and Shinko.
The Japanese companies are set to provide Intel with various products and services, including the sale, installation and maintenance of equipment for clean rooms, steppers and other wet and dry processing equipment. Tokyo Electron, the world's second largest vendor of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, has already been active recruiting field service engineers to joins its team based at Kiryat Gat.
The main field work for the Japanese companies in Kiryat Gat is due to begin in March 2007. Currently, teams from Japanese capital equipment companies are being trained in Fab 32, which Intel is building in Chandler, Arizona. The Kiryat Gat fab is slated to be an exact copy of the 300-mm Arizona fab.
Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat involves an investment of over $3.5 billion by Intel, in addition to a grant of $525 million from the government of Israel. It will work at the 45-nanometer manufacturing node on 300-mm diameter wafers. Production is expected to start in the first half of 2008.
Semiconductor and capital equipment companies from Japan have recently begun increasing their cooperation with Israel, according to Harel. For example, Storewiz Inc., (San Jose, Calif.), a provider of data compression software that can be used in industrial process control, and Tokyo Electron have recently announced a strategic partnership to bring Storewiz products to the Japanese market. Harel-Hertz Investment House assisted Storewiz in linking up with Tokyo Electron.
