[Satellite News 09-18-08] SES expects the combination of its SES Americom and SES New Skies operations into a single operating segment will generate more business than the two units did separately.
    Robert Bednarek, CEO of the combined company believes it will now be easier to make deals through its ability to provide more flexible bandwidth arrangements and the ability to create and connects more quickly.
“We were always able to provide customers with capacity on Americom, Astra, New Skies etc., but I think the combined entity will make it even easier for someone to get the capacity from us,” Bednarek told Satellite News. “We can also develop more networking type of products where we can move a client from one part of the world to another pretty easily. In the area of development, we should be able to more easily export developments in one region to other locations and markets.
     “The similarities are pretty strong,” he said. “Americom has a great client base in the media, DTH and the enterprise as well as the government sector. The challenge there is to continue to support the customers with capacity that they need. That is no different from New Skies. If there is a difference between the perspectives of the two marketplaces, we see a rapid evolution of the media distribution landscape in the United States. You have very robust competition between cable, DTH and now the emerging telcos. That dynamic is so strong it fostering all kinds of innovation in media distribution. You have mobile video, TV over broadband. In terms of New Skies current markets, some of those dynamics are also are present but there is also a strong need for basic satellite capacity to provide digital television distribution or enterprise network connections. The traditional satellite applications are very strong right now. I think what we are seeing are different stages at market evolution in terms of applications.”
    The decision to combine the two companies was made after SES looked at the dynamics of the business and decided it would be in the best interests for the two companies to operate even more closely.
    “Now that we have operated New Skies and Americom side by side for a number of years, we see more similarities than differences,” said Bednarek. “Both of us fundamentally present satellite capacity to a customer base. There are some common customers like the U.S. government or U.S.-based media entities with which Americom has a deep relationship with and who require international connectivity and distribution. We execute similar business models and we have a good combination of customer base between the two organizations. Our feeling was that if we could bring these two organizations closer then the result would make for an even better proposition to our customers.”
    Product lines such as IP Prime also could be given a wider audience as a result of the organizational changes. “Americom recently worked extensively in the IPTV area and done a lot of the preparation work there,” said Bednarek. “That work may be applicable in other areas of the world. The principle component of IP Prime is the aggregation of 200 to 300 channels of video programming in an MPEG-4 IP encapsulated format. In effect they created an IP neighborhood. What can you use that for? In the United States there is an interest in distributing video onto DSL and broadband. Elsewhere in the world you might feed other DSL operations, or you might act as the feed point for terrestrial retransmissions. There are many parties which might be interested in a neighborhood with those characteristics.”
    Due to regulatory and tax reasons, the majority of the international business will be handled by New Skies, and the U.S. deals will be handled by Americom. The combined operation will have 23 satellites at its disposal, but the SES Americom and SES New Skies satellite fleets will remain separately owned and operated.
    “Both Americom and New Skies have very strong positions in their marketplace,” said Bednarek. “There is a strong identity associated with each of the organizations. It is not our ambition to erase either of these identities. We want to combine the strengths of both. In addition to our history, there are some regulatory requirements associated with our use of various orbital slots, for example, New Skies uses Dutch orbital slots, and Americom uses primarily U.S. registered orbital locations.”
    However, with the combined operation, there is the question that Americom and New Skies will lose their individual identities. “Both the New Skies and the Americom names have a strong history in their markets. It is a question of how we can best communicate to our customers that what we are trying to achieve here is a further improvement in our responsiveness to what they need, irrespective of where they are. I am not sure yet what the most effective brand naming method is for communicating those messages,” said Bednarek.