IMPALA Appoints Valliappan As Director Of Market Development

MPALA, the International MHEG Promotion Alliance, has announced that Giri Valliappan has joined the organisation as Director of Market Development.
IMPALA was launched at IBC 2006 and the global interest in MHEG-5 has grown rapidly since that time.
Valliappan’s mission is described as two-fold: to continue to promote and expand the market opportunities for MHEG-5 on a global basis; and also to ensure the organisation delivers accurate information on MHEG-5 technology and developments.
"IMPALA was launched last year and was warmly welcomed by the market. Since then both it and the market have evolved – there are now seven major Supporter Members including Sony, Samsung, and Hitachi and FreeviewNZ. But there is still a considerable education job to be done on a global basis and the IMPALA website is our primary means of communication. IMPALA is here to increase the information flow from companies with expertise in MHEG to those who want to utilise it in order to develop product or launch services," explained Valliappan.
MHEG-5 is a public standard with country or region-specific profiles. Both free to air and payTV broadcasters are now looking into MHEG-5 as a low cost middleware solution for deployment over terrestrial, satellite and cable platforms; another of IMPALA’s roles is to provide guidance and advice to ensure the standard is adopted and implemented correctly.
"I aim to increase IMPALA’s membership with the growing number of companies who have a direct and immediate interest in MHEG-5 technology worldwide. Of course each company has an individual roadmap but by working together we can open up a greater number of opportunities more quickly," he concluded.
Valliappan is already well known in the UK Digital TV community having been involved early on with the MHEG-5 ISO Working Group, various DTG technical groups and DigiTAG. He previously worked with founder member Cabot Communications in a variety of roles.
The founder members of IMPALA are Strategy & Technology (S&T), Cabot Communications and EchoStar Europe.
Visit IBC stand 1.200 or see www.impala.org for more details.
(SP)