Multimedia for SMEs-setting up a web based co-operation platform for innovative products

摘要

In the past few years multimedia visualisation has gained enormous importance in a wide range of applications. But many enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, shy away from employing multimedia and virtual reality, becausethey lack experience in this field and the costs of professional support often exceed their financial potential. However, these techniques could do a valuable service for SMEs, not only in the marketing sector, but especially in the early phases ofproduct development. Here they can help to demonstrate form and functionality of sophisticated products to staff members, customers and users. The benefits are an evidently reduced time to market, a customer oriented product design and improved marketingstrategies.Through the introduction of innovative software tools, appropriate forms of visualisation with 3D-animations have made it much easier in the multimedia-world. In the past few years the number of companies, which offer multimedia services, have beengrowing constantly. These highly specialised firms can only cope with the multiple customer demands by co-operating with each other.The aim of our joint research project is to provide the architectural framework and to manage a global co-operation network for media suppliers and their customers. A web-based Broker-Service should thereby play the role of a negotiator amongst multimedia service-providers on the one hand as well as SMEs and multimedia service-providers on the other hand.