Philips: 'Sixth sense' and simplicity

In his thoughtfully stacked cubicle, you can’t help but notice a cryptic, curiosity-tickling painting, even before you go for the handshake. Ask Jelle Rieske, senior director, Consumer Electronics Division, Philips Innovation Campus (PIC), and he says with a proud smile that the painting is a gift from his son and he urges you to decipher it so that you can really enjoy it.

Now that is not so easy. Because all one can see are big red lips over a white canvas and nothing else, except a weird number running in decimals (1.61080339887…) that flanks the lips on the top. He relents mercifully on my incurable handicap with Physics and Mathematics, and interprets it for me in a jiffy. The number is the famous Scientific number ‘Phi’ and when you connect it with the ‘Lips’ painted right under, Phew! You have ‘Phi-lips’!

Sense and simplicity indeed, you may utter in admiration for the young artist. And after an half hour interview, you feel the same adjectives coming back for Jelle too, who is indeed reworking all the wires to plug Philips firmly and freshly in a market around interoperability, that is still ensconced somewhere in near future.

But with his R&D team and innovation muscle, Jelle is getting ready for everything, from real convergence of various devices, common standards between competitors, security issues with Internet-enabled toasters and Fridges, Indian localization needs and much more.

All this at the PIC, a division of Philips Electronics India Limited, a software development R&D center located in Bangalore that primarily deals in software for healthcare. Here’s all the Dutch action on Indian shores:

To start with, can you share something about your focus on interoperability that events like PlugFest drive and where various competing companies too come to test their ware?

We regard interoperability as a very important area. For customer to enjoy the ease of experience, and ease of plug-and-play, efforts towards interoperability are crucial. Complexity is intrinsic in technology but simplicity is required for the user.

At the Bangalore innovation campus, we are working on various such competencies as we know different products well. We have done twice as many tests as we need to and with such events we also give this opportunity to third parties for testing products per se as well as products to and fro other products.

In short, we want all our products to work perfectly with each other and so it is a priority to ensure interoperability of all our products within the brand and with other brands.

We are working on various technologies and standards around it and thus, with increasingly more companies in India also working on these technologies, we give PlugFest (which was organized for the first time in India this year) as an opportunity to come together and evaluate their designs for interoperability against other brands.

But how would interoperability fit in the market in the context of competition, which is integral to market play?

Interoperability is all about enabling various technologies together. It’s about simplicity, which is also about user interface. There are various levels important for interoperability.

First, standards are being worked upon. That’s what we do with all the testing and on development of internal devices that are able to replicate these standards. Second, users where interoperability certification levels come into play and here we use user knowledge to the optimum.

Standards cover only a certain amount of interface. Another level, of course, is the business level, which is also simultaneously being worked upon.

How much and how testing at Philips is devoted towards interoperability?

We started at Philips to do in-house interoperability tests. The same goes for tests between Philips products and with competitor devices by buying the most popular models (of course, only the ones that are currently in the market). As to test the ones that are ‘in development’, we attend Plugfests organized in the US or Taiwan.

Convergence and Internet enablement is redefining the consumer electronics market. But what if such new-age toasters also bring along the threats of hacking into a user’s home and other devices? How serious is security as a challenge?

Security is definitely a concern. That’s why we are not completely open to Internet. We are making sure that openness and security are rightly balanced and that we are ensuring with DRM technology, HDMI (High Definition Multimedia interface) technology, HPCP (High Performance Consumer Protection) mechanism etc. Products are HPCP compliant and pass through the requisite tests.

What is the progress on standards towards industry-wide interoperability efforts?

Today, new connectivity and interoperability standards are emerging fast, for example – DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), WiFi, USB, Bluetooth, HDMI etc. At Philips, we are participating in many standardization bodies and forums of new and emerging technologies.

We are, for instance, a founder member of the HDMI forum and have thus, set up an HDMI Authorized Test Center, which is the eighth in the world and first in India. Here we can certify products on HDMI and approve for the logo.

What have been your observation of the Indian market and the issue of localization of products?

As to localization, my answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no. ‘Yes’, because emerging markets like India are very important and can’t be ignored at any cost. ‘No’ because, we have done quite some research on localization needs and have observed that standard products for Europe etc are as good for Indian markets. That said, there is demand for low-cost products and for products at different price levels.

Is slowdown a bad or an ‘all the more right’ time for R&D?

This is a time to create the right products so that when buying power comes back, you have a good proposition. We also see the top line coming down, so yes, balancing costs is important. Hence, setting priorities is important between what we develop and what we cannot develop. It’s how you best prioritize it.

So how does the new face of Philips around ‘Simplicity’ translate into technology?

Simplicity as a direction, started with consumer insights. We got to know what he/she really wants, what wants to control, and what not to be bothered about. All that is for us to translate into the right technology specifications. Even a complex feature should be simple at the user’s end. Simplicity is in fact, all about technology.