THE BEACON INITIATIVE
 
Guiding Canada's Information Highway
 
BACKGROUNDER
 
A Founding Company of the Information Highway
 
The new national multimedia development company (currently called MMI)
will be a key engine driving the adoption of the Information Highway as
an economic, social and cultural tool.
 
MMI will search out, broker, and develop interactive and multimedia
services nationally and facilitate electronic communications between
consumers, businesses and institutions. Its endeavours will position
Canadians to benefit from the emerging information infrastructure. It
is anticipated that this will stimulate other entrepreneurs, both
partners and competitors, to join in the development of a new
information industry in Canada.
 
Operational Considerations
 
MMI will be owned by telecommunications holding companies. The details
of equity participation have not yet been finalized. MMI will involve
an investment of $250 million over its first five years of operation.
 
MMI will be involved in all aspects of the multimedia applications
business, including:
 
 content/applications development and brokerage;
 
 data and image conversion to digital format;
 
 distribution of consumer/business multimedia equipment, including
 multimedia equipment and related software;
 
 third party service bureau support such as content storage and
 billing;
 
 development and operation of the user interface system, including
 menus, directories, customer databases and help desks; and
 
 technical and administrative support services.
 
 
MMI Organization
 
MMI will establish its head office in Toronto with an initial staff of
approximately 50 technical, service development and marketing
employees. It will add additional staff and branch offices across
Canada to support the national roll out. The MMI executive slate will
be announced when MMI is officially launched in mid 1994.
 
MMI will distribute its services and applications through the local
Stentor operating companies or their designated subsidiaries, as well
as other value-added companies.
 
 
Target Markets and Marketing Strategies
 
Products and services developed by MMI will target many horizontal
(i.e. business and consumer) and vertical (i.e. health, education,
finance and government) market segments and will employ marketing
strategies tailored for each one.
 
There is strong evidence of consumer demand for interactive,
transactional and entertainment multimedia services of all kinds--from
home banking, shopping and distance education to video mail, games and
movies on demand. MMI will offer service applications in response to
that demand.
 
Business customers expect that the wide availability of broadband will
give existing communications infrastructures a new lease on life,
allowing them to fully deploy many of the applications they are now
experimenting with to enhance existing operations and beKer service to
their customers.
 
These applications include such things as remote medical diagnosis,
symptom simulation and image transfer in health care; remote seminars,
life-like video and interactive multimedia conferencing in training and
education; security and schoolyard monitoring; virtual classrooms and
courtrooms; interactive governments and social services; and full
motion interactive magazines and interactive directories in the
publishing sector.
 
Customers at home expect that multimedia will allow them to dial up a
movie from their living room, exchange video messages with friends and
colleagues or browse through a far-off database for visual information,
all as simply as they now place a call across town.
 
 
Alliances
 
Strategic alliances will play a major role in MMI's marketing and
operations. The development, acquisition and delivery of successful
multimedia services require participation from many industry sectors,
including: film and production studios, publishers, distributors,
software and hardware vendors, systems integrators, marketing research
houses and advertising and marketing agencies.
 
Details about MMI's strategic alliances will be announced at the
official launch of the company.
 
 
Technical Configuration
 
Consumers will use a multimedia controller, which has the power of a
computer, to connect to their television set. This device will provide
users with access to an electronic program guide containing a list of
all available services. Consumers will be able to browse through the
list of applications with a remote control device, order the program of
their choice and then exercise VCR-like control over the material as it
is presented (e.g. pause and rewind).
 
For business customers, the most popular access devices will likely be
personal computers. PC software that enables access to multimedia
services, will also be available.
 
 
Legal, Political and Cultural Issues
 
It is anticipated that MMI's business will stimulate new opportunities
for expressing Canadian identity and talent. MMI is committed to
supporting Canadian policies for the protection and development of our
culture.
 
MMI places great emphasis on its Canadian origins. It will capitalize
on the extensive Canadian resources in information, communications and
computing technologies for marketing both domestically and abroad.