ADB software breathes life into Asian hardware

Mobile device manufacturers, telecommunications giants and other industry players face the growing technological challenge of delivering media content to mobile and other electronic equipment. To keep pace, they rely on developers such as Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) to provide the complex software and system architecture the industry requires. The company leverages its Taiwanese heritage, European research and development, and Swiss perspective to provide a seamless and secure way for pay-TV and telecoms operators to deliver their service offerings across all platforms.

"The ability to consume media on any device anywhere at any time presents an extremely complex software engineering challenge that a typical manufacturing company may not be able to address," says Peter Balchin, CEO of ADB. "Our history has brought us to a point where we have all the right skills and focus to handle very challenging projects in the marketplace."

Chairman Andrew Rybicki founded the company in Taipei as Asia Digital Broadcast. Started in 1995, it initially delivered set-top boxes to Asia's early pay-TV companies. To capture the booming market for advanced pay-TV business in Europe and elsewhere around the world, the company rebranded as Advanced Digital Broadcast and moved its headquarters to Switzerland. Today, the company collaborates with universities in Poland, Rybicki's homeland, and in Switzerland to develop innovation and to ensure the reliability and quality of its products. ADB's 2010 acquisition of Pirelli Broadband Solutions in Italy also secured the company's reputation as a global specialist in software development and systems integration for telecoms companies. 

"We have all the benefits of being a European company with a Swiss perspective and an Asian heritage," Balchin says. "This puts us in a unique position of having a wide range and deep set of expertise in complex systems integration that the market requires as it develops and becomes more complicated."

In Asia, ADB delivers software to companies such as LG Electronics and Samsung, enabling their devices to run multiservice media applications. The company also works with satellite network IMTV and with cable network and internet provider Link Net in Jakarta, part of Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group. ADB also works with global manufacturers such as Cal-Comp Electronics and Communications and Foxconn Technology to deliver advanced pay-TV devices.

"We want to do more and more of such collaborations," Balchin says. "We are looking at combining our Swiss-European software capability with top Asian manufacturing brands as a future model of doing business in Asia-Pacific."