Harry et all, Dreamworks is big news,here is some other great news.
Short Q&A With DigitalCast President Hwang Jung-Ha
By Raphael Potential
Hwang Jung-Ha is the president of Korea-based DigitalCast, the company responsible for first wave portable MP3 music players such as the MpMan and Diamond Rio. We met in a cafe to talk shop.
Q: What is your background and how did you come to create the Rio?
A: Well, when I was in high school around 1984, I made quite a lot of money by porting programs to different operating systems for many known Korean companies such as Samsung. Before I started DigitalCast, I managed SQL databases for Microsoft and in 1996, we made a very advanced system called CoolFax. Although the MP3 players' and CoolFax's purposes are very different, the experience helped prepare me for making the MP3 player.
Q: Do you have a special passion for music?
A: Not really. I just liked music. I mean, who doesn't love music in this world? *grin*
Q: You and your company were the first to make portable MP3 players. You teamed up with Saehan to make the MpMan, then you developed the Diamond Rio. Were there any regrets along the way? Also, what's the history behind these products?
A: In 1996, we started a joint venture with Saehan to make the MpMan. We agreed for a 50/50 profit share, but Saehan demolished our contract. Especially in the Korean economy, it's common for bigger comapanies to take over smaller companies such as us. In another words, we got ripped off. We started on another model, the Rio, but we meeded to money to mass produce the player. There were a lot of companies that took interest in our product, but the procedures for getting the money were very complicated. We needed to release our product fast because other companies were beginning to see the potential of this market. Diamond made a proposition to us in which the procedure was really quick and in less than a week we accepted the offer. We are now a part of Diamond. We're more of a research team.
Q: What are the new and upcoming features of Diamond Rio?
A: Hmm... there are lots, but let me summarize them. More file supports. Diamond is doing great job of making alliances. Also, USB support, bigger lcd, song information. Also there will be different models of the Rio for different people, but all models will be below 200 dollars.
mp3.com
Hiram |
