The companies who are setting the pace in the current mobile TV and video markets are quickly signing up to this year's MobileZone at IBC 2009.

The Mobile Zone will run from 11 - 15 September 2009 at the RAI, Amsterdam during IBC, Europe's leading broadcast exhibition.

Confirmed Mobile Zone attendees include bmcoforum, Vidiator, Decontis, Streamezzo, Mobiclip, Expway, Gemalto, LARCAN, Lumantek, Unique Broadband Systems, Nufrontsoft and DiBcom

Now in its fifth year, the MobileZone has continued to develop to reflect IBC's global reach and influence provides a unique opportunity for application developers, content providers and technology companies to showcase their capabilities at the centre of the broadcast industry's leading international conference and exhibition.

The raison d'être of the Mobile Zone is to provide an opportunity for application developers, content providers and technology companies to showcase their capabilities at the centre of the broadcast industry's leading international conference and exhibition.

In addition to showcasing the latest developments in mobile TV and 3G services, the Mobile Zone will feature the latest innovations in mobile devices and explore their impact on the creation, management and delivery of content. The accompanying IBC Mobile Zone Business Briefings will examine some of the issues and opportunities arising from this revolution in mobility in further detail.

One of three streams running throughout the IBC2009 conference will be ‘the business of broadcasting’, which will tackle the dramatic changes in commercial models currently challenging the industry. Central to the conference is the IBC keynote address, this year given by Erik Huggers, director of future media and technology at the BBC.

The keynote Huggers will deliver is called “Identifying Growth Areas in the Broadcasting Industry”, but he will speak on the whole gamut of electronic media. His background makes him uniquely qualified to cover the breadth of the subject: before joining BBC he was with Microsoft where he helped establish Windows Media in Europe, and prior to that he worked on interactive media at leading European production company Endemol Entertainment.

During his time at the BBC he has overseen the rapid development of the iPlayer catch-up service, for radio as well as television. This has proved staggeringly popular, with 256 million TV programme downloads in its first full year of operation, and has set the bar for other broadcasters worldwide when developing their online presence.

“When planning the IBC2009 conference it is of course right that, in the current economic climate, we look at the business side of our industry,” says David Crawford, chair of the conference committee. “We simply cannot bury our heads in the sand: we have to tackle the massive shifts in commercial balance. These are driven by new technologies every bit as much as economic circumstances, so IBC is clearly the right forum for this debate.”

For 2009 the IBC conference has been re-organized to run along three parallel streams: technological advancements, content creation and innovation, and the business of broadcasting. Within each stream there is a full program of papers, workshops, panels and debates. The Erik Huggers keynote is at 11am on Friday 11 September.

The MobileZone at IBC2009, is being jointly developed and marketed by IBC, IT Europa and BPL Business Media. For more information visit www.ibc.org