2008: This really was a landmark year for ONDAS Media. in We restructured the company and reoriented its strategy in almost every aspect that included:

• A focus on OEMs led to two car deals (Nissan and BMW)
• We refocused regulatory strategy and formed partnerships that will carry us forward
• Used market research to redefine our content strategy and formed lasting partnerships with industry leaders
• Leveraged this progress to engage a major investment bank to address fund raising

Significant progress was made that including signed OEM contracts with an enterprise that's valued in excess of 1 billion euros. We experienced factory installed radios for more than five million drivers. There was significant technological progress in that we now have teams of 20 to 30 people working in Germany and Japan to integrate radios into every type of vehicle sold in Europe, from sub-compact to the most elite luxury car.

After the restructuring, we identified the four most important “must have” achievements and we set about an intense effort focused strictly on those achievements. All other activities were scaled back if they did not lead to achieving those four items — sign two car deals, partner on the regulatory, produce key content partnerships, and leverage the successes to work with an investment bank to further our fund raising.

2009: Looking forward, there will be more car deals, the launch of services on the Internet and terrestrially, the use of satellite transmissions for OEM testing, and the fund raising necessary to pay for these enterprises.

About the author
Mr. Krueger has 23 years of experience in satellite systems development, during which he has directly managed the development, launch, and operations of 67 satellites and 16 launch vehicles. He holds a number of patents / applications and trade secrets in advanced communication technologies and, from 1998 to 2001, he led the development of the Global Radio (Digital Satellite Radio) concept and detailed design, managing a team of several contractors. Prior to founding Cobalt, Mr. Krueger worked from 1993 to 1998 as a senior manager at Motorola’s Satellite Communications Group, pioneering the successful delivery of the Iridium program. He initially led the technical implementation of the Iridium domestic launch program and the formulation of the operations and maintenance design for the entire system.

About the company
ONDAS MEDIA S.A. (“ONDAS”) is a Madrid-based company that plans to be Europe’s first and premier digital satellite-based provider of multilingual radio, video, and other data and telematics services primarly to vehicles and hand-held mobile devices. ONDAS plans to construct, launch and operate a fully integrated digital satellite system that will broadcast its high quality, multilingual radio, music, video, data and telematics services directly to consumers in their automobiles, trucks, homes and offices as well as to their mobile devices on a Pan-European basis. ONDAS is scheduled to begin programming and web-enabled services in 2009 and full subscription-based, advertising-free commercial services in 2011, addressing a European market opportunity of approximately 240 million vehicles and up to 600 million inhabitants.