SM
Have you offered any guidance to your business teams and/or shareholders as to how you project your Company’s quarterly earnings for this market and for the global market overall?
Joerg Schmidt, DEV Systemtechnik
We see big opportunities outside of Europe as well. For example, we recently formed DEV America (www.dev-america.com), based in California, so DEV will be even better positioned to meet growing demand for our advanced technologies from satellite teleports, uplinks, direct-to-home (DTH) and IPTV head ends, as well as cable TV systems and playout facilities. We also see growing demand from Asia and the Mideast, for example, with recent projects in India and the Mideast, with installations for major operators such as Etisalat.
Dimitrios Papaharalabos, Europe Media Port
EMP is a private company with private investors that like everyone else is operating with regular forecasts and internal updates for growth plans and especially for maintaining healthy profitability.
Paul Weldon, ASC Signal
Europe should certainly not be seen as a declining market. I think “steady as she goes” sums up Europe’s revenue generation for the immediate future.
Roberto López, Hisdesat
It is critical to perform a long-term planning, be visionary and leave nothing to chance. In an industry as complex as this, that requires large investments, the comprehensive planning of innovative, sophisticated and complex projects is essential to achieve their successful completion. This is what creates trust, investments and opportunities for further growth.
Doron Elinav, Gilat
In general, we do not publish guidance or projections for our earnings. We think the market is getting better in 2011, compared to the past two to three years. We can see a sign of this in our backlog. At the end of 200, our backlog was $180 million, and at the end of 2010, it was $232 million. Our management objectives for 2011 are to increase our revenues to more than $330 million and achieve an EBITDA margin of 10 percent.
Mark Dankberg, ViaSat
Economic environments are difficult and challenging. However, there are always opportunities when you can deliver higher performance AND lower costs to your customers. The bandwidth economics of high-capacity Ka-band satellites make that possible and that is the area we are most focused on for growth.
In general, given that we see bandwidth as a core value proposition — especially the unit cost of bandwidth (such as cost per MByte, or Mbps stream) — we have seen our markets constrained until the launch of these next generation satellites. Now that KA-SAT is in service, with ViaSat-1 scheduled for launch in September, we believe that creates more opportunities for us to grow our equipment and services revenues. In the meantime, we have seen the greatest growth from migrating broadband users away from conventional L-band MSS services and onto spread spectrum Ku-band and/or C-band services because that also supports the higher performance at lower cost theme that is so attractive for Ka-band.
John Restivo, Teledyne Paradise Datacom
We are making stringent efforts to control costs within the region, ensuring that every dollar invested in product development and marketing is targeted at those segments of the market that are strategically important to our business
Mary Cotton, iDirect
On a sales level, our guidance has to do with how we manage our regional teams. We look at our territories within the European region as separate portfolios, and we try to manage each territory on that basis, reflecting the unique characteristics of each market we operate in to be as locally responsive as possible. That’s rolled up from a global perspective, looking at iDirect’s regions as separate businesses and again managing on a portfolio basis. By this approach, we ensure that we are commercially flexible and agile by market and vertical whilst managing the challenges and risks faced by any global commercial operation.
On the land mobile market this year, major events, natural disasters, and missions in different regions of the world have led to an increase in the need for mobile satellite communications. This has definitely had a positive effect on the global market for satellite communication, mainly in the aid, NGO, media and government market. In the maritime segment, the new Vizada XChange platform in combination with the just launched broadband packages is expected to lead to very positive results over the next few months.
Svend Lykke Larsen, KVH
We are cautiously optimistic about our near-term financial goals as the general worldwide economic weakness has put a lid on consumer spending, especially in the leisure marine and land markets. On the other hand, we are very pleased with the development of our strategic initiatives like our VSAT business, where hardware shipments more than doubled in the second quarter and we activated a record number of airtime subscriptions. As a result, we’re confident in our longer term growth strategy and financial objectives.
The mini-VSAT Broadband network is a major part of our long-term goals, as the ongoing revenue stream from the sale of airtime service will continue to grow as more customers activate mini-VSAT Broadband accounts. New coverage along the western coast of South America gives mini-VSAT Broadband the broadest global coverage and the widest global regulatory approval of any maritime VSAT service. The mini-VSAT Broadband network has never been more popular, and with a track record of more than three years of operation, it’s a proven resource for mariners. We’re now delivering more than 100 terabytes of data per year with a network reliability rate of better than 99.5 percent. Our goal is to continue to expand and enhance the mini-VSAT network and the hardware and services available to our customers while aggressively pursuing a wide range of business opportunities.
Ahsun Murad, Optimal SATCOM
Based on the business growth we currently see with our customers, we expect continued strong growth throughout the rest of 2011.
Catherine De Peuter, Futron
Yes we have, this year as in the past years. However, this information remains confidential.
Steve Beaumont, Skyware Global
Presenting a realistic strategy to deal with any global region is essential. The final strategy has to reflect the market conditions as well as a more detailed action plan for implementation recognizing the need to fully resource each plan. Realism and setting expectations at an achievable level helps to relieve the pressures associated with this drive for short-term and immediate results. Naturally we all want to be successful and care has to be taken not to dilute plans to the point of meritocracy. The most successful approach to the growing problem of short-termism is the one that our industry is built upon, namely communication.
Steffano Vittor, Vizada Networks
Yes, we have incorporated our guidance in our long range planning provided to our shareholders.
Gabriel Racah, ORBIT
ORBIT is active in several domains: mobile satellite communications, C4ISR (communications, computers, command, control, Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) for defense customers and earth observation ground systems. As a public company we provide an overall guidance to investors that is available here: http://www.orbit-cs.com/investor-kit.
Peter Guggenbach, RUAG Space
Direct to home (DTH) television will remain the major driver for satellite communications in the near future. Technologies such as HDTV and, to a much smaller extent, 3D, increases the demand for additional satellite capacity. The growing number of DTH customers in Eastern Europe will also produce additional demand for services.
SM
How do you believe the European satellite market will impact global, as well as your Company’s, business opportunities?
Romain Bausch, SES
The satellite business is very resilient to the economic downturn. We have long-term contracts with our customers for starters. And while people may tend to spend less on restaurants, movies and vacations in times of economic difficulties, they still want entertainment at home. Many attractive payTV packages may grow even faster during economic struggles, since they provide a good value when value is king. For the price of a few theater tickets, for example, monthly subscribers can get the latest sporting events and movies delivered to their home. HD and 3D are making it an even more compelling business model. Just look at BSkyB, which announced this summer that its HD subscriptions grew by 40 percent.
The new SES, which we’re launching at IBC, is building on our deep experience in DTH and video distribution in Europe and North America. We’re very well positioned both strategically and financially to capitalize on our European and U.S. successes by enabling the development of attractive DTH and orbital neighborhoods in a growing number of emerging markets. As part of our global launch, SES is doubling the size of our teams on the ground serving emerging markets across Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere. Our overall goal is to become even closer to our customers and positioned like no one else in the industry to understand and meet the needs of our diverse clientele.
Regardless of the market segment and the region of the world, as a global provider unmatched in customer centricity we will enable everyone from broadcasters to broadband providers to unleash new opportunities with SES.
Paul Weldon, ASC Signal
The European satellite communications market seems to have recovered quite quickly from the recent recession. Although traditional transponder frequencies (C-, Ku-) are saturated, this has probably helped drive the onset of Ka-band space segment. We see this as a significant opportunity for ASC Signal, given our proven mastery of Ka-band technology. Ka-band is a complex technology to work with as far as ground equipment is concerned, being subject to much more stringent criteria than the traditional C-, Ku- and even DBS frequencies. We do not believe the low-cost, less-sophisticated manufacturers will have proven solutions in the short term. This is not meant to sound like complacency as no doubt they will develop it in the medium to longer term. The onus will be on ASC to stay one step ahead, always looking to provide cutting edge technology.
Europe will always figure as a heavyweight, with operators such as Eutelsat and SES-Astra continuing to invest heavily in the sector, build for longer term growth and increase satellite transponder capacity. These are organizations of the highest professional calibre that would not be investing in such technology if they were not convinced of the market potential and the business case. On top of that, Europe is also very much a stepping stone for activities in adjacent regions such as the Middle East and Africa. There are clusters of European specialists and integrators with substantial experience in satellite technology who are also becoming adept at positioning themselves for markets outside the immediate European theatre. ASC Signal is tracking all of these movements in the European and worldwide markets and sees them as potential opportunities for growth.
Gil Ilany, Spacecom
Spacecom’s research and market analysis show that the economic realities in Europe will continue to grow — with more growth in Central and Eastern Europe, alongside further growth in Western Europe. The company is ready for the future and currently is scheduling a new satellite, AMOS-6 to be launched in 2014 and co-located with AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 at 4 degrees W. AMOS-6 will include pan-European coverage, as well as coverage over CEE and the Middle East.
Spacecom continues to be bullish on the marketplace. In a more connected world, satellite operators will continue to be the choice for wide area broadcast, video contribution, data services, and backhaul. This will persist in Europe for the next decades and we believe that capacity requirements will advance and increase especially as broadcast and broadband Internet grow. More of the same market forces will affect Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe — our key markets for the future. We are positioning ourselves to continue our growth as a multi-regional satellite operator with the launch of three new satellites AMOS-5, AMOS-4 and AMOS-6 planned for the next three years.
Ahsun Murad, Optimal SATCOM
Cost is always a consideration for companies looking to make capital investments in enterprise systems such as our satellite capacity management systems. One would think that we would see slower revenue growth; however, it has been quite the opposite. Satellite operators and services providers looking to increase operational efficiency and maximize profitability are highly motivated to implement integrated systems like the ECM. We expect to see continued strong growth in the European market for this reason, and due to the continued weakness of the U.S. Dollar against the Euro, since all our products are priced in that currency.
As I mentioned earlier, Europe is of strategic importance as it is a trendsetter for corresponding sectors in higher-growth, emerging markets. We feel that our established success in Europe will have a significant multiplier effect in other regions worldwide. Systems such as O3b, if successful, could significantly shift the world-wide equation for the satellite market and Optimal SATCOM is evolving to address this potentially game-changing environment.
Mark Dankberg, ViaSat
We think the bandwidth economics of high-capacity Ka-band will have a very influential effect on the global satellite data market. Obviously for that to happen on a global basis there will need to be high-capacity satellites in orbit also on a global basis. We also stress that it’s not merely Ka-band that is the game changer — it’s the bandwidth economics that come from Ka-band satellites delivering tens or hundreds of Gbps each — into markets that are open and competitive for satellite services. The first place that happened was in the U.S. – where our WildBlue subsidiary pioneered the market for Ka-band, high volume, low cost services for home and business.
Eutelsat is showing that the business model can be applied in other parts of the world. While the U.S. is a relatively homogeneous market, the coverage footprint of KA-SAT encompasses literally dozens of countries with a wide range of economic situations and terrestrial networking infrastructure. We believe that the success of Eutelsat in such a diverse environment will help catalyze the global spread of this exciting new approach to satellite broadband services. And we believe ViaSat will be at the forefront in helping develop the ground and space technologies, and service business models, for innovative new telecom partners the world over.
Dr. Harald Stange, Romantis
Clearly, we have a marketing and sales target, which was discussed with our business teams as well as with shareholders and, as of this writing, we are slightly ahead of our target. We are also continuing to develop our global presence. Mid-year 2011 finds us having started our operations in Canada, which now allows us to approach North and South American markets with solutions
.
Steve Beaumont, Skyware Global
The march towards progressive digital solutions is unstoppable. The demand for faster and more secure communication vehicles is as rampant as ever. These two aspects work in the favor of a satellite solutions company like Skyware Global. Yes, the market is increasingly competitive, however, by offering a broad array of product solutions, a willingness to work in tandem with the customer all underpinned with a long and strong market presence Skyware Global are confident of our ability to continue to grow within what is effectively one of the more mature market places in the world. VSAT solutions are key here and the broad product range offered by Skyware Global enable us to penetrate the market where others become more restricted. Our expertise in high volume cost competitive manufacturing enables us to not only compete on a product benefit point of view but also ensure that our customers receive a highly competitive price. Value added products and service are also a key contributor to our on-going success. Working with our network of distributors and systems integrators across Europe significantly helps enter the newer markets and grow those where satellite solutions have been present for longer.
A company cannot be truly global nor wholly successful without penetrating the critical European market place. With a strong and growing market presence throughout Europe, Skyware Global continues to be well placed within both the Europe and the world to remain a market leader in the arenas we choose to compete in. Europe whilst well developed in many markets continues to offer both geographic and solution growth opportunities. Our plans involve a heavier concentration of resources in this market. The more traditional economic cycles tend to affect the core regions at different times thereby allowing for a compensatory effect as one continent suffers others bloom. The current conditions are therefore somewhat, albeit increasingly unusual. Fortunately the satellite markets remain buoyant as the drive for improved communication mediums expand and improved technologies are adopted. Skyware Global, with its long standing market position as well as its continued, indeed, expanding investment in its engineering capability enable us to be well positioned to answer all market calls with affordable, high quality and technologically advanced solutions. There is no doubt that Europe is a critical business market place, Skyware Global intends to continue to lead the way across the DTH and VSAT arenas.
Gabriel Racah, ORBIT
Maritime satellite communications continues to grow as shipping companies realize that always-on broadband communications allows them to streamline their operations and reduce overhead costs. From electronic charts and maintenance training to fuel savings and efficient routing, many of these maritime SATCOM solutions are led by European companies and adopted by European ship owners.
The satellite industry is an important domain in ORBIT’s business. In view of the wide range of applications (communications, navigation, Earth observation, etc.) and the growing demand by both commercial and defense customers, we believe that this industry is inherently more resilient to the challenges of global economy and will continue to grow on a global scale.
Dimitrios Papaharalabos, Europe Media Port
The European satellite market is an exciting business area to be in. There are new satellites being launched every year with new capabilities and more capacity to meet the current and future needs of emerging digital technologies and new applications. EMP is a European based company with a vision to become an established player in the global satellite teleport industry with uplink solutions mainly via South East Europe and around the Mediterranean Sea to the rest of the world.
Doron Elinav, Gilat
We see the European market as having potential for growth — specifically in two main segments; consumer-based Internet connectivity through Ka Band capacity, and defense applications, such as On-The-Move solutions. Looking a bit further into the future, we think that the availability of Ka Band capacity will open new opportunities for additional applications and markets, such as DSNG and enterprise connectivity.
Anything that happens in Europe has an impact on the global opportunities, as well. This is for two main reasons: First, Europe is one of the leading regions in terms of progress of Ka-band and capacity, and as such, other regions are looking at the European example to see how to add Ka-band satellites. Many European satellite operators are global or cover additional regions, so their experience will be relatively easy to replicate on a wider scale. Second, Europe is in many aspects a hub to satellite services in other regions, such as Africa, Middle East and Latin America. What happens in Europe directly affects most of the globe, as the services originate from Europe.
Svend Lykke Larsen, KVH
There is no question that the world’s economy, not just Europe’s, has taken quite a hit in recent years. However, as a diversified company serving many markets, KVH is well-positioned to weather the storm. We believe that we are one of the few maritime companies that managed to grow through the toughest part of the global recession, and we look forward to ongoing success in the European market, and all the other markets in which we operate, in coming years. The commercial maritime market shows great promise, particularly as we offer high-performance, low-cost solutions like the TracPhone V3. These solutions can provide the outstanding reliability that commercial mariners need for safety and business efficiency, without breaking monthly communications budgets.
We expect that the European satellite market will continue to grow in the coming quarters and years, despite the current economic challenges. When economies begin to stabilize, we should see more activity in the commercial maritime sector, and a significant recovery from the yacht industry, as well. We expect that this strengthening of the European satellite market will support parallel growth in KVH’s commercial and leisure maritime markets. As commercial mariners feel more comfortable expanding budgets for onboard communications and crew welfare, and yacht builders and owners feel more comfortable adding satellite communications and entertainment to a wider range of vessels, they will turn to the industry leader, KVH, to provide the most innovative mobile satellite technology and the best service the industry has to offer.
Peter Guggenbach, RUAG Space
We expect that the institutional European market will remain stable in the future. Thus potential for growth is limited in this segment and we see the main opportunities for growth outside this market segment, especially in the U.S. and in Asia.
We do not expect more growth in Europe as in other parts of the world. In the mid term, it will be more the emerging countries which drive growth on the commercial satellite market. However, as stated initially, the SATCOM market is not a regional one. Growth outside Europe means business opportunities for European companies, too. And European companies, including RUAG Space, are in a good competitive position to realize these opportunities.
Catherine De Peuter, Futron
The European satellite industry is second to only the United States in terms of overall financial strength; this ranking has remained constant in the past years and is expected to remain unchanged in the near future. The satellite industry lags behind other industries according to most economic indicators, because of its long lead time to get to markets, its truly global nature and its dependence on the government and commercial sectors to almost equal degrees. On the downside, if the economy improves suddenly, investments in telecommunications networks often go to the terrestrial networks, because they are more easily contracted for and often less regulated, or at least, more transparently so.
Europe is a global player, with strong satellite manufacturers and operators. Adding in the continent’s financial foundation, Europe’s largest actors are well positioned to lead international efforts. However, Europe’s industry is highly concentrated. So while large European-based multinationals are highly competitive internationally, the region needs to stimulate entrepreneurial activity and small scale activity. There is a reason that SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are U.S. companies — the environment attracted global innovators. So looking forward, this is the type of macro-environment European leaders and decision-makers need to consider. This type of decision-support — which combines market, technical and business insight — is Futron’s sweet spot. We have done well with European clients in the past, and look forward to adding value to their operations in the future.
John Restivo, Teledyne Paradise Datacom
The European market has the diversity within it to drive product development for our leading satellite modem and RF product ranges. The diversity of applications within the region, for example GSM backhaul in unregulated markets, drives development of new functionality, like LinkGuardTM a modem tool for identifying unwanted interference to satellite carriers. Equally the use of more compact flyaway’s, driveaway’s and fixed terminals in Europe drives the development of higher power density RF equipment that fits into smaller packages. All these developments translate into products we successfully market into other regions of the world to positively improve sales and returns to our shareholders.
Dr. Harald Stange, Romantis
The satellite markets in Europe are dominated by the broadcast sector, as well as some data and Internet services from Europe being driven into the EMEA region. It’s different in the North American market, where all of the key VSAT equipment manufacturers are located. Moreover, such hardware companies have become complex service providers, launching their own satellites.
As I have already mentioned, we are on the way to having vertically integrated business here in Europe that will serve service demands in our region and we will also be able to compete in a global market, as well. A certain part of the VSAT market will be taken by the recently launched Ka-band satellites, but such is primarily targeting the consumer market — there won’t be so much of an effect on the enterprise market. We’re concentrating on B2B solutions based on traditional Ku-band satellites, but also working on our own Ka-band products for enterprises, as we foresee some oversupply of HTS capacities with interest from operators who wish to diversify these satellites services into the B2B markets, as well.
John Suranyi, Sencore
We are very optimistic about the near future and see huge growth potential for Sencore solutions in the European marketplace. In fact, industry studies show that the global broadcast and media technology sector is staging a strong recovery in the aftermath of the recession — which bodes well for technology providers.
Content providers around the globe are looking for ways to move their content into new markets and geographies. As analog TV systems are shut off and digital standards are adopted worldwide, the need for new satellite distribution networks will continue to rise. As a key provider of equipment and services for the delivery of high-quality compressed video services over satellite, Sencore will continue to serve these emerging and expanding applications.
Mary Cotton, iDirect
The European market is a financially mature market, and despite some of the big issues being experienced by EU states with respect to their own economies, such as Greece and Ireland, we’re still growing our business, and we’re doing so through segmentation. It’s a part of our strategy within the Western and Central European markets to become more relevant to customers within the key verticals and segments. Because of the economic issues in Western and Central Europe, iDirect is looking at emerging markets, particularly Russia and CIS, and determining how to become more focused and segmented.
Our success in winning the ground infrastructure project for Global Xpress with Inmarsat has expanded our reputation, specifically in the European satellite market. It illustrates our expertise as a company in handling very large network opportunities and turnkey projects as well as supporting emerging Ka-band opportunities. Inmarsat is headquartered in the UK, and their emergence into the Ka-band arena will have a dramatic impact on our industry, as will the emergence of other satellite operators in the region.
In general, the emergence of Ka-band is going to change the industry; it’s the biggest game-changer since TDMA. This will be a significant and positive change within Europe. iDirect has a detailed understanding of the requirements most critical for success with this new technology. Our primary advantage lies in our technology approach; the band-agnostic nature of iDirect hubs and remotes means that we’re ready to work with Ka-band today.
Phillippe Manzano, Globecast
For the time being, video has been quite a resilient market segment. The slowdown in the advertisement business, which occurred in 2009, was quite a short one. Of course, new projects have more difficulties to emerge in the present situation. We, however, consider the European video market as viable over the next year or two. HD is still a big growth opportunity in this market.
Other markets offer higher expectations in terms of growth. Europe, however, is a key market for GlobeCast, stable and trustworthy, with plenty of business opportunities. In terms of technology, being a mature market, technology trends often begin here and then spread to other regions of the world. So keeping an eye on this crucial region can offer clues as to where the global market as a whole is going.
David Hochner, SatLink
We see the European market as a growth driver. With our partners and our business located on the continent and with the growing demand for world-wide connectivity, we view Europe as a continuing market. We tend to look at markets at increments of 5-10 years and with further advances in satellite and fiber technologies, the markets in Europe as well as those that are more pan-European should continue moving forward. Opportunities for growth are many. Some of these include the opening data, broadcast and mobile markets linking Europe to Africa, while others are the broadcast markets with a need for increasing digital broadcast services.
Because the European satellite operators are world leaders, their actions have great impact on the global satellite industry. Operators such as SES WORLD SKIES and SES ASTRA are based in Europe. With their global coverage, they are able to be leaders around the world. Additionally, Eutelsat is an industry leader whose coverage also is outside of the European continent. Operators such as AMOS, though not located in Europe, operate their fleets for the European market and have strong penetration among local operators. SatLink works with all of the above, acting to link Europe with the rest of the world and thus their operations affect our services and create opportunities for our company.
Howard Hausman, MITEQ
The European market is the most important foreign market to MITEQ. At the beginning of the economic crisis, capital was hard to attain so projects were put on hold, but the demand was still there. People want more connectivity all over the world. Satellite communications is a key portal to attain that connectivity so I expect continued growth. Growth for a subsystem manufacturer like MITEQ is in increased demand, requiring better utilization of the limited available bandwidth. Maximum utilization of this limited bandwidth is accomplished by designing higher precision and higher technology equipment, which is what MITEQ does best.
New business and new technology is usually rolled out in the most active markets such as Europe. People are the same all over the world and demand the same connectivity, what happens in the US, happens in Europe, happens in the Far East, and happens all over the world. MITEQ services the satellite communications industry over the entire planet and looks forward to growth in any and all areas of the globe.
Roberto López, Hisdesat
In the current context with important economic and financial problems in virtually all the Western economies, it is certainly more difficult to grow in terms of new contracts and investments. It is also true that the use of new technologies for the development of space communications is a must for developed countries. The information provided by the satellites is increasingly essential and is being incorporated naturally into our daily lives. The ability to predict natural disasters, imaging for high-resolution mapping, planning agriculture crops, promote the maritime safety of our vessels, facilitate military operations, etc, are enough reasons to bet on an industry that puts the space at the service of society. These capabilities improve the quality of life of all citizens and have become key elements to transform our environment in a friendlier place to live in.
The challenge consists of offering services that are useful, efficient and sustainable from a financial point of view. In this sense, the cooperation public-private partnerships are a good way to overcome the current crisis.
Europe plays a significant role in the global satellite market. Projects are becoming more numerous and have a coverage that spans the globe. We are no longer a niche market to move forward with a global and open vision of the future, supported by both, public and private agencies. In this sense, it is essential to count on the support of the European institutions that have capabilities in the space sector to promote the development of a market that is increasingly efficient and competitive. This is the best and only way to succeed globally.
Dr. Matt Perkins, SSTL
SSTL sees two areas of significant commercial growth. Firstly, in telecommunications there seems to be an ever growing demand for bandwidth which leads, on the one hand, to demand for very large satellites. However, somewhat paradoxically, as many communications satellites get bigger, a market for smaller satellites is created as not every operator needs the capacity of a very large satellite. We see this market developing on two fronts — additional services such as Ka-band broadband services and also growth from new entrants, typically smaller organisations or nations wanting their own system rather than relying on bandwidth purchase.
The other big growth area in commercial space is in Earth observation — we believe initiatives like DMC3 will really open up peoples eyes to the amazing things that can be done with the current generation of small satellite technology. One trend that worries us is the provision of “free” data, for example from the EU/ESA GMES Sentinel satellites, which has the potential to undermine the business cases for commercial providers and operators. This needs to be carefully studied as it could hold back new commercial systems for a long time.
As a U.K.-based manufacturer, we see Europe as our “home market” and it is, therefore, very important, with SSTL supporting institutional and commercial programs in Europe. However, SSTL has always operated globally and many of our customers are outside of Europe. SSTL will continue to operate globally. For example we are currently building satellites for Nigeria, Canada, Russia, and Kazakhstan, and in 2008 we created a U.S. subsidiary to address the U.S. market.
Steffano Vittor, Vizada Networks
We have a positive approach to growth in services from the European market for the coming years, mainly driven by the strong growth in emerging market countries that European industry wants to capture its equal share of. We also see an increased interest in the exploration and production of natural resources within the same areas. All of these create business opportunities for a remote communication services company like Vizada Networks.
As a recognized European Satellite Services company Vizada Networks will continue to expand globally following our customer base wherever their business opportunities will take them and with continuous focus on providing robust, reliable and state of the art services.
Arnold Friedman, SS/L
European satellite operators have a healthy growing business both within Europe and outside of the continent. We work with SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat who provide services around the world. Some of their growth comes from providing services in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, but there is also significant growth in parts of Europe for services such as broadband and HDTV.
Kai Koppenburg, WORK Microwave
The European market has tremendous potential for equipment manufacturers to serve the needs of global users. WORK Microwave provides high-end, sophisticated equipment that brings the latest technologies such as IP-traffic via satellite, Ka-band, and multistream technology, to our users. We believe that our market leadership and our range of superior products will enable us to continue to differentiate ourselves even in a competitive and economically strained marketplace and give us the opportunities for growth.
The growing global demand for communication solutions especially in evolving geographical markets like Africa, Asia, and the Middle East will have a direct impact on the business of the European system integrators serving these markets. As a result the European satellite market will see an increase in business opportunities. WORK Microwave is ideally positioned to take advantage of the rising wave of growth opportunities and expand its business through a combination of technology leadership and cutting-edge, sophisticated products.
Bruno Dupas, Integral Systems Europe
These are major opportunities for Integral Systems. As the leader in providing complete, commercial-based ground segment solutions, we are able to provide our customers with cost-effective, efficient alternatives to proprietary systems that are in-flexible, expensive and hard to manage.
Last month, we announced that Kratos Defense and Security Systems completed its acquisition of Integral Systems and may questioned how such will impact European operations. As part of Kratos we can now leverage the resources of a nearly $1 billion company that has deep expertise in communications as well as markets that are complementary to ours. Kratos has particular strength in Situational Awareness (SA) and Command and Control (C2) technologies that provide a complete 360-degree view across the entire communications and information infrastructure. It has only been a month since the acquisition, but we are already seeing the first of many significant synergies in areas such as UAS systems and cybersecurity.
We expect the relationship to be of particular benefit to our international military customers as we reach into Kratos’ long history of providing engineering and communications services to the U.S. defense and intelligence community, including products and services that are used in some of the largest, most complex and most security-conscious networks in the world.
Joerg Schmidt, DEV Systemtechnik
Europe is a very dynamic and competitive marketplace. To compete successfully, and establish the strong position we currently hold, with the loyal customers we now serve, we have had to demonstrate consistently over the past decade, the performance, innovation, reliability and value we offer customers in Europe. As the field-proven supplier of choice in Europe, we are also in a great position to support the global growth of our Europe-based customers as they expand into global markets. At the same time, customers around the world, are increasingly becoming aware of the DEV reputation for valuable, quality solutions.
Jani Lyrintzis, EB
The opportunity for MSS in Europe will continue to rise, especially as new use cases emerge and MSS technologies advance to allow end-users the ability to connect to the “cloud” over satellite. Although connecting to the cloud over a MSS platform or device is still in a burgeoning phase, it is another example of the European MSS opportunity that will keep users connected, wherever they are.
Jesse van Straaten, Vizada
Due to the economic environment in Europe and the rest of the world, we have seen a slow down over the past few years, especially with the shipping companies who were reluctant to pay for new technologies because of the required investment in the newer systems. However, even during the economic crisis, we saw that cost-efficient communications is vital to the operations of the vessel — which lead to the fact that we as Vizada developed new solutions for cost-efficient communications. The crisis hasn’t fundamentally affected the usage of satellite communication.
That being said, the European satellite market is one of our key strategic geo-regions and continues to be a focus for growth and development. We are proud to offer a global reach with our international sales teams and our regionally located distribution network of partners. The positive trends we see in Europe also have an influence in the rest of the geo-regions. Vizada is also looking forward to market growth in other areas of the world such as Asia Pacific, which is following the general trend of the global economy.