Seeing You Seeing Me

Monitor your business from anywhere, at anytime -- that is the premise behind TeleEye's remote management system. In fact, you could be being watched right now, as the digital video cameras can transmit images across the Internet without the need for a computer. This flexibility allows any camera that is fixed in your direction to feed real-time video to a screen next door, to the next street or even to a different country. TeleEye's main application however is actually remote management rather than security. By being able to view good quality video from any location via a Web browser, it is possible to manage a retail store or even multiple stores from the comfort of your own living room. "Many people initially thought that the main application for our system was security cameras," Professor Cliff Chan (above), CEO of TeleEye, explained. "But the majority of our clients now use it to remotely manage their businesses." TeleEye was founded in 1994 by the City University of Hong Kong and a group of engineering researchers specializing in signal processing technologies. Prof Chan explained that the university wanted to close the gap between research and application, by hopefully encouraging entrepreneurs to pick research and bring the product or service to market. "Instead of just creating new theories and looking to publish them, the idea was to create valuable products that were reliable, user-friendly, and could be profitable business ventures," he said. By all accounts, this vision has been 20-20. The company currently has a global distribution network spanning 25 countries. On top of this, TeleEye has won 12 local and international awards to date, whilst Prof Chan himself has won three individual awards for his groundbreaking research into video compression technologies. In May 2001, TeleEye Holdings Limited was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, making it the first publicly-traded company set up by an academic institution in Hong Kong. Its listing attracted widespread attention with its public offering being oversubscribed 109 times. Today, TeleEye is focused on research into transmission media and compression technology to keep one step ahead of its competitors. With the ubiquitous use of broadband Internet connections, the quality of video streams continues to increase, but while Internet service providers (ISP) proudly boast download speeds, they keep quiet about upload speeds which remain relatively low. To remotely managing a business, the speed at which a remote camera can upload images onto the network is vital, and until ISPs dedicate more bandwidth to uploading, the quest for better compression technology will continue to be a never-ending battle. The company is also focusing more and more on product applications. With the emphasis on remote management, applications such as retail store management, logistics management, construction site management, property management and cross-border factory management are TeleEye's target markets. "A lot of businesspeople in Hong Kong have factories in Mainland China so TeleEye allows them to manage their operations from Hong Kong, and to even show customers their factory over the Internet without having to travel to China," Prof Chan explained. "Such applications can be expanded to fine-tuning sample productions, which factory managers can directly show customers as they come off the production line." A new area the company is developing is 3G mobile technology. In fact, TeleEye developed one of the first 3G cameras to hit the streets. Although the technology is ready, service providers' charging mechanisms -- usually per byte -- are putting customers off using streaming video. Obviously trying to keep in constant contact with your business or home via a 3G phone would be prohibitively expensive. However, Prof Chan expects that costs will eventually come down which will make remote management even more effective. Looking to the future, TeleEye is committed to upholding its reputation for quality products and services worldwide to build up its brand name. Although Prof Chan operates in a niche market, he faces stiff competition globally. About 70% of the company's clients are from abroad, with Britain and central Europe being their core business base, while Prof Chan says he is looking to expand the company's presence in the Middle East. In Hong Kong, although the market here is limited, TeleEye has a strong client base, some of whom will be customers for life. One such customer is an entrepreneur who set up a TeleEye system in his small retail shop so that he could keep an eye on his new venture from his home and office. Checking on his shop one day, he expected to see his employees hard at work serving customers, but instead he saw them tied up while crooks were busy filling cartons with his goods. He immediately called the police who caught the flabbergasted robbers red-handed. Company: TeleEye Holdings Ltd Established: 1994 Year joined HKGCC: 1997 Web site: www.TeleEye.com