Leading TV Makers Launch Smart TV Alliance, Provide Infrastructure For Effective Collaboration Among Smart TV Makers And App Developers

SEOUL, South Korea and AMSTERDAM and SAN RAMON, Calif., June 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Founding members LG Electronics and TP Vision (for Philips TVs) today officially established the "Smart TV Alliance" with other TV manufacturers in the process of joining. The Alliance forms a cooperation that aims at enhancing the Smart TV experience by creating a non-proprietary ecosystem for application developers to create attractive, platform-independent services. The foundation of the Smart TV Alliance comes after the collaboration announcement of the mentioned TV makers at IFA 2011 in Berlin. The names of other players that are joining the Alliance will be announced accordingly on the Alliance's website.

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Expanded Market Opportunities

"Before today, the Smart TV industry was a very difficult market for both application developers and TV manufacturers and as TVs from different brands used different platforms and technologies," said Bong-seok Kwon of LG Electronics, President of Smart TV Alliance. "Smart TV Alliance creates a larger playing field which encourages developers to create more and better TV applications at the same time giving manufacturers and consumers the richest source of movies-on-demand, music services, games, social networking and more."

Reduced Time and Costs

Alain Perrot, a Smart TV Alliance Executive board member from TP Vision, is convinced that reduced application development time and costs will be beneficial for all: "Instead of spending valuable time on porting and testing on different platforms, developers can focus their creativity solely on realising apps that consumers will enjoy. Now we can really make it interesting and fun for everybody."

To make it easy for new partners to join in this effort and to facilitate effective discussions, the founding Smart TV makers have established Smart TV Alliance Consortium (www.SmartTV-Alliance.org). One of the primary objectives of this consortium is to help define technical specifications which will enable application developers to create their applications once and run them on multiple TVs regardless of the platform.

Software Development Kit

To enable this kind of development process, Smart TV Alliance will make the first version of its software development kit (SDK) available on its website which developers can download at no cost and use to develop their applications. The SDK is based on open web technologies such as HTML5 and allows for developed web applications to run on Smart TV's from participating members regardless of the underlying platform.

Smart TV Alliance plans to build on this first version and announce specifications of SDK 2.0 followed by the actual SDK 2.0 software release at the end of this year. With SDK 2.0, developers will be able to create applications for 2013 TV sets from participating Alliance members.

Smart TV Alliance is designed to benefit all participating members, TV makers, applications developers and content providers alike, and welcomes any interested organizations to join. The latest information about its activities and plans can be found on the official webpage (www.SmartTV-Alliance.org) including membership, SDK and plans for developer forums.

About Smart TV Alliance

The Smart TV Alliance's mission is to create a large and productive ecosystem for Smart TV application development that gives manufacturers a faster path to more and better TV applications, enables developers to write applications once for many different platforms, and provides consumers with a rich source of content and services. For more information on the development environment or how to join the Alliance, visit www.SmartTV-Alliance.org.

About LG Electronics, Inc.

LG Electronics, Inc. (KSE: 066570.KS) is a global leader and technology innovator in consumer electronics, mobile communications and home appliances. With 117 operations around the world, LG achieved global sales of USD 49 billion (KRW 54.26 trillion) in 2011. LG is comprised of four business units – Home Entertainment, Mobile Communications, Home Appliance, and Air Conditioning & Energy Solutions – and is one of the world's leading producers of flat panel TVs, mobile devices, air conditioners, washing machines and refrigerators. For more news and information on LG Electronics, please visit www.LGnewsroom.com.

About TP Vision

TP Vision is a dedicated TV player in the world of visual digital entertainment. TP Vision concentrates on developing, manufacturing and marketing Philips branded TV sets in Europe, Russia, Middle East, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and selected countries in Asia-Pacific. We do this by combining our design expertise and innovative Philips TV heritage with the operational excellence, flexibility and speed of TPV Technology. With these combined strengths, we bring high-quality TV sets to the market: smart and easy to use with sophisticated styling i.e. new materials and slim design. We believe in creating products that offer a superior TV experience for consumers. With Philips TVs, TP Vision is a global leader in the hospitality market. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, TP Vision is the exclusive brand licensee of Philips TV for the above listed countries. The TV Company is 70% owned by TPV and 30% by Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in the Netherlands. TP Vision employs close to 3,300 people in several locations around the globe.

SOURCE LG Electronics, Inc.