PIVOD Technology is continuing its expansion into new international markets with several contract wins and plans to undertake a capital raising through a subsidiary later this year.
PIVOD Technology is continuing its expansion into new international markets with several contract wins and plans to undertake a capital raising through a subsidiary later this year.
The news comes on the back of the recent completion of several major projects.
The company, which is currently examining more than 300 potential opportunities, is particularly interested in major projects in Italy, Spain, the US and China.
PIVoD founder and executive chairman Phillip Jenkins said the company is currently negotiating representation in Beijing with a view to tapping into projects that are run at the 50 or more museums and cultural centres in China.
He said while research and development was an ongoing concern, the company would focus on sales and marketing now that its offerings were fully developed
Mr Jenkins remained tight-lipped about the planned capital raising, but said that it would be done through its Melbourne-based subsidiary Media Service Centres Australia.
Funds raised would be used for the Media Service Centre Australia because of the highly capital intensive nature of the business, he ssaid.
Mr Jenkins said PIVoD had a strong reputation in the niche market of museums and cultural centres with particular expertise in large-scale international audio visual systems.
“We control 65 per cent of the cultural precinct in Melbourne,’ he said.
ACMI, which is located in Melbourne’s Federation Square, is just one of PIVoD’s high profile projects in Victoria.
The company successfully beat tough multinational competition to win the tender that required a fully integrated system to run across a single broadband network.
Worth more than $3 million, the ACMI project is a showcase of the Nedlands-based company’s integrated media platform and involves the integration of video streaming, storage, control and management systems.
ACMI, which runs over four floors in the Alfred Deakin Building “can be likened to running 85 television stations”, Mr Jenkins said.
Steve Pretzel, managing director of Pretzel Logic, a sister company of PIVoD (after being acquired by the company last year following a failed bid by Vianet), said the media platform was a culmination of PIVoD’s research and development.
“The concept of the media platform is that any of those elements can be emphasised or de-emphasised according to user requirements, but it is still using the same technology,” he said.
“For future projects, the same platform can be used but in different configurations.”
Mr Jenkins told WA Business News that PIVoD had just been informed that it had secured a further $325,000 contract to complete the fourth stage of a $2 million project at the Victorian Arts Centre.
The project, he said, involved visual and LED displays that were controlled over an Internet protocol infrastructure.
Another major project for PIVoD is the recently completed large scale $US440,000 project at the Alexandria Museum of Art in Louisiana.
‘The Heart of Spain’ project involved an audio visual exhibit guide, which is run using VisiGuide – an interactive audio visual device developed by PIVoD – and an online component incorporating an educational platform.
Mr Jenkins said the system devised by PIVoD provided more user interactivity than other available systems and that the backend system allowed exhibition organisers to collect and report on data that would be used to improve future projects.
Mr Jenkins said The Heart of Spain exhibition would provide an ideal reference site for tapping into future projects in the US – an industry he estimated to be worth more than $US4 billion a year.
Mr Jenkins said the company had to be innovative to win projects and that operating in Perth was no barrier to success in other markets.
“We work a lot better in Perth on a smaller budget [than some overseas competitors],” he said.
“We’re a pretty well run company.
“We have grown out of the profit of the company, which makes us far better as a business because we’ve had to grow within the parameters of the company.
“There is no reason why we can’t be the best in the world.”
