Abstract

Integrating Hardware, Software, and Service Platform

CEIVA Logic's strategy of bundling digital photo frame sales with picture mail delivery service is significantly different from the business models adopted by most other digital photo frame vendors, which have tended to focus exclusively on digital photo frame sales. From CEIVA Logic's point of view, the sale of a CEIVA Logic digital photo frame is just the beginning of their business relationship with the consumer in question. The company's goal is to achieve customer lock-in through the integration of digital photo frame sales and the operation of the company's picture mail delivery service platform. When designing its digital photo frame hardware and software and implementing system integration, CEIVA Logic gave considerable thought as to how to achieve customer lock-in, ensuring that customers would continue to use the company's picture mail delivery service. CEIVA Logic digital photo frames are equipped with built-in modems, along with Cirrus Logic's EP7212 embedded processor to handle automated Internet access tasks. The value-added services provided by CEIVA Logic's bundling business strategy, and the patented technology that underpin them, give consumers a superior user experience that combines easy photo sharing with ease of use, while also allowing them to receive picture mail without using a PC. CEIVA Logic's core competency lies in the mechanisms and methods supporting the operation of the company's digital photo frame plus picture mail delivery service platform business model. The digital photo frame hardware represents just a single application product. Having established a solid foundation in the digital photo frame market, CEIVA Logic is now expanding into new markets, particularly enterprise applications such as digital signage. By integrating CEIVA Dynamic Digital Signage with CEIVA Network's image content management, storage, and delivery capabilities, CEIVA has made it very convenient for Dynamic Digital Signage users to undertake advertising and promotional activities.

Forming Strategic Ties with the ICT Industry

Analysis of news reports relating to CEIVA Logic's activities shows that, during the period 2000 -2007, CEIVA Logic was working to improve the transmission capabilities of its digital photo frames, adding Wi-Fi to their existing wired transmission capability, and adding the ability to transmit digital images using a camera phone. CEIVA Logic has also been on the lookout for opportunities for cross-industry collaboration, including strategic alliances with firms in the IT and communications sectors. The mechanisms used to combine digital photo frames with picture mail delivery service involve a high level of ICT technology integration, including the integrating of dial-on-demand and picture mail delivery technology, wireless transmission for camera phone picture mail delivery, and Wi-Fi wireless transmission technology. The formation of strategic alliances with ICT companies has helped CEIVA Logic to speed up the development of new product concepts that conform to the company's goals: helping people to share happy memories with family and friends through automated picture mail delivery service, and making it possible for people to receive picture mail without the need for a PC.

Online Photo Album to Boost Digital Photo Frame Services

Online photo albums facilitate the linkage and sharing of digital images. The last few years have seen an explosion in the provision of online photo album services, with leading portal sites such as Google and Yahoo! moving actively into this new business area. Given their linkage and sharing capabilities, the growth of online photo album services may herald new business opportunities for providers of digital photo frame picture mail delivery services that could help these service providers to grow. Examination of the level of interactive behavior found among online photo album communities indicates that one of the main reasons for the rapid expansion of online photo album services is these services' ability to support digital photo diaries and lifestyle information sharing. Online photo albums have evolved into a new virtual community platform, in which participants get to know each other by viewing each other's digital photo albums. In some cases, this can eventually lead to interaction in real life; the digital photo album service is thus functioning as a kind of social networking service (particularly for female users). CEIVA Logic's business model -involving the integration of digital photo frames with picture mail delivery service -is based on the flesh-and-blood communities formed by users' friends and relatives. Online interaction -in the form of picture mail delivery -serves to strengthen the existing relationships. The ability of online picture album services to turn virtual relationships into real-world relationships thus has the potential to create significant business opportunities for companies such as CEIVA Logic; it can only be a matter of time before new solutions begin to make their appearance. It can be anticipated that existing users of online photo album services will be attracted by the linkage and sharing capabilities of CEIVA Logic's digital photo frame plus picture mail delivery service model. Companies already combining digital photo frame sales with picture mail service, and new entrants will both be challenged to design new types of interactive digital photo frame that can meet the needs of potential users, thereby gaining maximum benefit from the business opportunities that the online photo album market offers. How well firms rise to this challenge will determine not only whether these individual companies succeed or fail, but also whether the digital photo frame market continues to grow in the future.

Need to Upgrade Digital Photo Frame Display Resolution

The display panel resolution of CEIVA Logic's digital photo frames is significantly inferior to that of competitors' digital photo frames. The four digital photo frames that CEIVA Logic has introduced so far use two different display panel specifications: 7.0-inch 480RGB x 234 pixels TFT-LCD (analog interface), and 8.0-inch 640RGB x 480 pixels TFT-LCD (analog interface), with panel resolution of 72 ppi (pixels per inch) and 104 ppi respectively. Currently, the mainstream panel specifications used by rival digital photo frame vendors are: 7.0-inch 800RGB x 480 pixels TFT-LCD (digital interface) and 8.0-inch 800RGB x 480 pixels TFT-LCD (digital interface), with panel resolution of 133 ppi and 117 ppi respectively. As consumers are likely to compare product specifications before making a purchasing decision, the inferior resolution of CEIVA Logic digital photo frames compared to those of other vendors may discourage consumers from purchasing CEIVA Logic's products. To strengthen the competitiveness of its products in the digital photo frame market, besides continuing to develop the value-added services provided through its digital photo frame plus picture mail delivery service platform, CEIVA Logic will also need to upgrade the resolution of its digital photo frame hardware.

Appendix

Research Scope

This report analyzes news reports relating to CEIVA Logic's digital photo frames, along with the company's patented "Method and apparatus for distributing picture mail to a frame device community" technology. The report also explores the modes of interaction among uses of online photo albums, with reference to the Master's thesis Beautiful Life: Study on the Interaction among Web-Photo-Album-Community (Pang Hui-chieh, Department of Journalism, National Cheng Chi University, 2005).

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