CSR Connected To Innovation Without Any Wires
From defining how gadgets of different types will connect in the future and discovering technological breakthroughs that lie ahead, to mastering the art of innovation, CSR India is doing it all. We take a look at how it is juggling all these roles and still not tripping up.
It is the framework that changes with each new technology and not just the picture within the frame.” These words of Marshall McLuhan (a Canadian communications theorist, educator, writer and social reformer) aptly describe the far-reaching influence that every new technology has. CSR India should know—it has been exhaustively leveraging the sheer versatility of wireless technologies to explore newer vistas.
Making the right connections
CSR India is a research arm of the UK-based CSR, a provider of personal wireless technology. The CSR Group has it R&D operations in the UK, France, Sweden, Denmark, USA and India. CSR India is incidentally the company’s largest R&D centre outside the UK.
{quotes}Set up with a mission to develop a centre of excellence for software development, CSR India is involved in most areas of CSR’s product development, with competencies in both multiple wireless technologies and multiple platforms.{/quotes} John Mudie, general manager, CSR India, reveals the key areas of research and development taken up by the centre: “Given CSR’s focus on connectivity centric technologies, the team at CSR India today focuses on core Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and UWB (ultra-wide band) development projects.” The company’s strength lies in research related to Bluetooth technology and exploring the possibilities that lie ahead.
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CSR India also develops software used by smartphone providers to integrate Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other wireless connectivity technologies into their products. “Our team in India develops solutions optimising Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support for Microsoft Windows Mobile and Windows CE products. Android, Symbian and Embedded Linux are other areas of expertise in which our engineers get involved. In one way or another, CSR India has a foothold in defining how products of different types will connect in the future,” adds Mudie.
Bluetooth—CSR’s forte!
Bluetooth is one of the most successful short-range wireless technologies in use today and has arguably revolutionised the fields of mobile telephony, computing, automotive and other consumer electronics. Mudie sheds light on the promise that the technology holds: “Over the past 10 years, evolutionary changes to the Bluetooth specification have enabled designers to incorporate the popular wireless technology in an ever growing number of applications. The most recent standard ratified by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), Bluetooth v2.1, delivered enhanced data rates (EDR) of up to 3MBps. This was a significant improvement on the original Bluetooth v1.0 standard offering of 1MBps. Bluetooth v2.1 has also been greatly improved in terms of power usage, security and ease-of-pairing.”
Avenues galore
One constant trend in Bluetooth’s success has been its ability to surprise by penetrating into innovative, and sometimes unexpected, application areas. Bluetooth Low Energy (a new lower power version of Bluetooth), in particular, is a technology that is entering entirely new areas, and as Bluetooth incorporates into and co-operates with other technologies, the number of applications that may emerge out of such an amalgam of technologies is difficult to ascertain.
“Using Bluetooth as a network-negotiator for high speed radios like Wi-Fi and UWB opens up use cases for printers, cameras, hi-fi equipment, televisions, networking, and other areas. Bluetooth, used in conjunction with GPS, NFC (Near Field Communications) or FM, will open up entirely new possibilities for user interaction with a mobile device,” says Mudie.
{quotes}In the future, CSR does not see Bluetooth acting as an isolated technology. Rather, as time goes on, CSR sees complementary connectivity technologies coming together in one overall ‘connectivity centre’.{/quotes} “Leveraging Bluetooth’s dominant position in the market, CSR’s connectivity centre technologies utilise Bluetooth as a hub on which to integrate additional value-added wireless technologies. By sharing resources and integrating complementary wireless functions, the connectivity centre chips drastically expand the available feature set to designers, but with minimal impact on handset size, overall performance and cost.
“By making intelligent use of pooled resources within the same chip, or achieving synergistic communication between different chips, entirely new use-cases are opening up, enabling people to concentrate on the task (i.e., file transfer), rather than having to worry about which technologies to select—all in all, a totally transparent user experience,”
says Mudie.
Though we can speculate about the hundreds of applications for Bluetooth Low Energy, time and the market are likely to produce innovations that we cannot even imagine today. Mudie gives an example: “In the world of tomorrow we can expect health workers to be able to collect patient information in rural areas and store the data on personal organisers or smartphones. They will be able to relay this information using cellular networks to medical centres, for further diagnosis. This will help bring expert and remote diagnostics to the developing world.”
With such an abundance of possibilities, the market is expected to be enormous for developing applications around Bluetooth and its low energy technology. Mudie agrees and shares that demonstrations of the technology have already taken place last year at the Wireless Japan show held in Tokyo. “CSR—the only company currently with silicon ready for the new low power Bluetooth technology—demonstrated Bluetooth Low Energy inside the company’s BlueCore7 IC (integrated circuit) in a mobile phone, to show how it can interoperate with weighing scales and temperature sensors.”
The challenges of delivering the best!
CSR India knows that in these competitive times when customers are extremely discerning and will not compromise when it comes to quality, the only way to stay ahead is by continually innovating. So how does the CSR India management fuel the spirit of innovation in its team of engineers and challenge them to meet tough customer expectations?
Mudie explains: “Often, innovative solutions are required to satisfy product requirements. Before innovation can start, a deep understanding is required of the domain in which the problem exists. Engineers need to understand the challenge that has to be solved and what impacts or side effects any chosen solution will have. Engineers sometimes need to be challenged to place themselves in the position of customers to understand their needs and constraints. Based on this deep understanding of the problem domain, our engineers are encouraged to come up with innovative solutions.”
Another important aspect of understanding customers is being exposed to trend-setting innovative products sold by its competitors. A library of products containing wireless technologies both from CSR and its competitors has been built. These products are primarily used for interoperability testing to ensure CSR solutions work with other products. As some of these products are not easily available in India, making them available in the office exposes engineers to new and innovative connectivity solutions, says Mudie. “Recently, we’ve added Bluetooth-enabled printers, using which photos can be printed directly from handsets without any drivers or cables,” he reveals.
To be able to build a strong team aligned to the business requirements of the organisation, transfer of technology is an ongoing requirement. At CSR India, technology transfer mostly happens through hands-on experience, or internal training. Travel to other CSR design centres is also required to build knowledge on technologies developed elsewhere in the organisation.
{quotes}Hands-on training is imparted and knowledge transfer happens by working closely with other experienced engineers. This approach ensures integration of the teams as well as transfer of technology in the most effective way.{/quotes}
The innovation scenario in India
CSR India has undertaken incremental, across-the-board measures to step up innovation within the organisation. Comparing that with the overall innovation scenario as it exists in Indian tech firms, we observe that although cost competitiveness and scale have always served as factors rendering significant advantages to Indian companies, yet the industry is marred by glitches when it comes to leveraging innovations. On this subject Mudie remarks: “Innovation that is driven by new product creation for both the local and foreign market is something that is still not happening in the country.” He feels that both technical and business capabilities are well developed in India, and that funding is also available, although this may be restricted in the current economic climate. “Where I believe India still needs to develop is in the area of ‘creativity’… a majority of the Indian tech firms currently are doing service design work, and are not so much focused on product creation. In contrast, in the automotive industry, we see innovative solutions to meet the aspirations of the Indian consumer. The Tata Nano is a classic example. There is always room for more innovation in the tech sector as well; imagine phones optimised for following cricket results or updates on astrology?”
So what should be the way forward? Mudie suggests: “India has a huge domestic market which is still relatively untapped. Incomes are rising, and aspirations are rising. So, product level innovations to meet local needs should be the preference as there is a huge domestic demand.”
The country needs to build on its strong technology and business strengths and stimulate start-ups developing innovative products. “Innovation needs to be stimulated probably starting from the schools and the universities. Industrial design and product marketing should be promoted.
“Programs should be in place to stimulate the whole product development cycle: from conceptualisation, through development, to manufacturing, distribution and retail. To encourage this, education could broaden students’ awareness and prepare them for working in multi-discipline teams,” he adds.
The Indian IT industry is focused mainly on obtaining assignments from MNCs. The focus is on optimising work processes and developing scalability. Technically, Indian companies have matured and are very capable of handling complex assignments; however, the control remains with stakeholders. “I’d love to see Indian companies, especially start-ups, grasping onto research and maturing this into end-user products… This isn’t a glitch; it’s a great opportunity for Indian companies to prosper,” says Mudie with confidence.Knowing CSR’s track record, we are sure entrepreneurs will be noting those words carefully. We certainly are!