Parks Associates and CEA welcomed Roger Pitton, Program Director, TV Business, Microsoft Corporation, as the Keynote speaker for CONNECTIONS Europe Summit, taking place May 19, in Nice, France. This one-day executive seminar will be held in cooperation with TM Forum annual management conference at the Hotel Palais de La Mediterranee.

Mr. Pitton will deliver his keynote "IPTV and the keys to keeping customers" in the Cotton Club Room at 9:45 a.m. He will address business strategies for IPTV operators, including best practices to gain and retain customers in the highly competitive European market. Mr. Pitton, an expert with several years of firsthand experience in marketing and selling IPTV services, will specify the keys to differentiation, including unique content, an unmatched user experience, and the convergence of technology and content, required for sustaining success.

Team Lightbulb announces that the number of registrants for its Telecom2008 conference at the NAB Show was double last year's conference registrants. They also announced that the participation in the exhibit floor tours was up 45%. Total registration for Telecom2008 was over 450.

"Deployments of IPTV are growing. Carriers and vendors are looking for valuable information on revenue-generating opportunities such as dynamic advertising and premium content," said Fred Ellis, COO of SecureMedia, the leading provider of digital media protection for video-on-demand, IPTV, multimedia and music over broadband IP networks. "With a wide range of sessions hosted by knowledgeable experts, Telecom2008 provided a wonderful venue for attendees to obtain practical IPTV solutions. We look forward to our participation and sponsorship again next year."

CONNECTIONS announces two pre-show events, taking place June 24, 2008, bringing expert analysis on business strategies and consumer and industry trends in digital living as well as the opportunities and challenges of device management in the digital home.

Business Cases in Digital Living, a strategic workshop from Parks Associates, and Device Management Summit: Low Cost Device Deployment & User Support, from TM Forum, will be held in conjunction with CONNECTIONS: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase.

The CONNECTIONS conference will take place June 24-26 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. CONNECTIONS provides high-level research, knowledge, and analysis to 800+ executives from the converging consumer technology and service industries.

TVover.net is giving away 1 free CONNECTIONS 2008 pass to the first reader that emails us at media@tvover.net with name, email, company, address and phone number.

CONNECTIONS: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase, hosted by leading research firm Parks Associates in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), is the premier executive event focused on the market developments and growth factors for advanced digital lifestyle solutions. For twelve years, the following industries have participated at CONNECTIONS: new media, digital entertainment and gaming, home networks, Internet and television services, software and middleware, digital health, mobile applications and services, consumer electronics, and home control systems and security.

For more information about CONNECTIONS 2008, visit http://www.connectionsconference.com.

Internet World opens its doors for the 17th time, since first opening in 1992. The show features BBC Worldwide and Google amongst its speaker and is set to raise the bar once more, with it’s biggest event yet. This builds upon last year’s accolades, including Best Business Exhibition. As the fastest growing event in its industry, Internet World has been able to attract keynote speakers from industry leaders including ITV, MySpace and Nokia.

Internet World is a digital marketing forum that attracts a serious business audience. It is the only show that covers all the key issues relating to online strategy; all addressed under one roof, it provides an end-to-end solution for visitors. This is why 89% of attendees are involved in purchasing, with 20% of those companies having over 1000 employees. Although primarily a UK event, an increased number of worldwide exhibitors and delegates will be attending.

UTStarcom will host an IPTV Webinar on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT. The Webinar will feature presentations from Peter Blackmore, UTStarcom's president and chief operating officer, and Brian Caskey, UTStarcom's vice president of worldwide marketing, and focus on the latest global IPTV market trends. The 60-minute presentation will include an overview of UTStarcom's RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution and an update on the company's momentum and customer deployments in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America regions, as well as a closing Q&A session.

The live webinar will be available at: http://investorrelations.utstar.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=53243.

Parks Associates and the Consumer Electronics Association announce the speakers for the CONNECTIONS Europe Summit, taking place on May 19, 2008, in cooperation with TM Forum's Management World 2008 in Nice, France.

The CONNECTIONS Europe Summit in Nice will address the new challenges to service providers in attracting and retaining customers in today's hyper- competitive worldwide market. Research from Parks Associates indicates the number of households worldwide using telco/IPTV services grew from 4.7 million in 2006 to more than 14 million in 2007. Europe -- with more than eight million households -- experienced a 250% growth rate between 2006 and 2007.

Roger Pitton, Program Director, TV Business, Microsoft Corporation, will deliver the Summit's Keynote address "IPTV and the keys to keeping customers."

DS2 will present the importance of Powerline Communications on the growth of IPTV at the 2008 NAB Show. During the presentation, the company will highlight how powerline connectivity accelerates IPTV growth and how it will impact the requirements for STB manufacturers. During the discussion a DS2 executive will review strategies for embedding powerline networking, focusing on reliable low-cost designs that guarantee interoperability.

UTStarcom will host an IPTV Webinar on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT. The Webinar will feature presentations from Peter Blackmore, UTStarcom's president and chief operating officer, and Brian Caskey, UTStarcom's vice president of worldwide marketing, and focus on the latest global IPTV market trends. The 60-minute presentation will include an overview of UTStarcom's RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution and an update on the company's momentum and customer deployments in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America regions, as well as a closing Q&A session.

The live webinar will be available at: http://investorrelations.utstar.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=53243.

CeBIT Australia 2008, the region’s largest business technology trade fair, has launched the most advanced digital media platform ever used to support a major exhibition event in this country.

Created locally by organiser Hannover Fairs Australia, the GoCeBIT.com.au platform is based on Enterprise 2.0 practices and includes multimedia news, podcasts, video content and blog postings from a broad range of sources - visitors, conference speakers, organisers, exhibitors and media partners.

Hannover Fairs Australia Managing Director Jackie Taranto calls GoCeBIT a gamechanging resource for the exhibition, putting news coverage, event updates, conference resources, and exhibitor information in one place.

TANDBERG Television will show its award-winning solutions that are enabling the television industry to fulfill its digital destiny and video vision, today and for the future. Whether it's advanced compression systems, on-demand or content distribution, the company's products are being used today by the world's leading broadcasters, operators and programmers to deliver new viewer experiences and advertising opportunities. From state-of-the-art acquisition, contribution and distribution; through HDTV and VOD; to internet, mobile and IPTV – TANDBERG Television continues to drive the roll-out of multi-platform digital entertainment, and its NAB booth (#SU4210) will highlight live end-to-end demonstrations of its solutions for this multiplatform universe.

Australia’s leading communications companies Optus and Telstra will join multinational technology giants Fujitsu, Motorola, Oracle, Panasonic, Red Hat, Siemens, Sony and Yahoo! at the CeBIT Australia 2008 business event.

The attendance of these major brands demonstrates that with eight weeks before the region’s largest business technology trade event opens its doors from May 20-22, CeBIT Australia 2008 has already attracted record interest.

"This year Optus’ Small and Medium Business division has entered into a multi-year agreement with CeBIT Australia," said Phil McDermott, Head of Product Marketing, Optus Small and Medium Business. "CeBIT Australia offers an ideal platform for us to showcase products including mobile, broadband and wireless solutions while building and maintaining strong customer relationships."

The nation’s most prestigious information and communications technology (ICT) research agencies have joined forces with CeBIT Australia 2008, the region’s largest business technology trade exhibition, to create the AusInnovate summit, an event to underwrite Australia’s future prosperity by better exploiting local technology talent in global markets.

AusInnovate is co-organised by the Commonwealth’s peak research and development (R&D) ICT agencies – NICTA, CSIRO ICT Centre, and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) – as a flagship conference within CeBIT Australia 2008.

Hosted by ABC Radio National Breakfast presenter Fran Kelly, a long-time political commentator on ABC television and radio, AusInnovate is a day-long business summit focused on Australian research priorities and commercialisation strategies to improve the nation’s export performance in high-tech goods and services.

Following the success of last year’s show, the IPTV Zone at IBC2008 is being increased in size by 15.5% to more than 1100m². The expansion reflects the growth of the IPTV market which is forecast to grow to reach 63 million subscribers by 2010 (an annual growth rate of 92% from 2.4 million in 2005) creating a $27 billion marketplace according to a recent report by iSuppli.

The IBC2008 IPTV Zone will bring together many of the organisations and technologies that are emerging as major forces in these new markets. It will therefore provide a unique opportunity for application developers, content providers and technology companies to showcase their capabilities at the heart of the broadcast industry's leading international conference and exhibition.

TVover.net and Videosearch.com are giving away 1 free Video Search Summit pass valued at $1595 to the first as well as 5 half price tickets for the next 5 TVover.net readers that email Josh at josh@videosearchnews.com with name, email, company, address and phone number.

The unique Video Search summit 2008 will be launched in San Francisco on the 8-9th of April 2008. The summit will provide solutions to the challenges faced by all members of the online video search space including: video sharing sites, intermediaries, video search engines, video e-commerce companies, video creation and editing companies, rich media advertising firms, and video streaming sites by the leading experts in this prosperous field. Networking opportunities will enable you to speak to the main stakeholders in the Video Search value chain and those that face the same complex challenges as you.

Furthermore, the summit exhibition allows you to meet with a wide variety of Video Search experts all under one roof, saving you time, resources and money.

For more information about the Video Search Summit, visit http://www.videosearchnews.com.