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The Ones to Watch
The 2007 Satellite Executive of the Year nominees set themselves apart from the competition with their performances. Many other industry executives also had major accomplishments during the year, but the full measure of success of those deeds may not be realized until 2008 or beyond. These are the companies and executives that bear watching throughout the year, and the direct competition that many will engage in will make it even more interesting.
The giants of the fixed satellite services (FSS) sector — Intelsat CEO David McGlade and SES Global CEO Romain Bausch — again will be in the public eye, both because they lead the dominant satellite operators in the world and because their customers and competitors will scrutinize their every moves. For example, SES launched its U.S. IPTV initiative, IP Prime, and subsidiary SES Astra launched its satellite broadband service, Astra2Connect, in Europe. The performance of these two new initiatives will be key performance barometers for the company in 2008. The next two largest FSS players also enter 2008 with high expectations. Eutelsat, lead by CEO Giuliano Berretta, rolled out its consumer broadband service, Tooway, across Europe and also announced plans to add a dedicated Ka-band satellite to its fleet in order to offer a compelling proposition to customers who are unable to access terrestrial broadband. Following the completion of Loral Space and Communications’ acquisition of Telesat in October, CEO Daniel Goldberg will guide the new Telesat, now fourth-largest FSS operator, through its first year of operations.
Also on the satellite broadband front, the competition between WildBlue Communications Inc. and Hughes Network Systems will become even more intense in 2008, even though demand for their respective services offers plenty of business for both companies. WildBlue began operations with its WildBlue-1 satellite in 2007, and subscribers to the satellite broadband service jumped 150 percent to 250,000. WildBlue CEO Dave Leonard also extended wholesale operating agreements with AT&T, Echostar, DirecTV and NRTC, and WildBlue Enterprise Solutions expanded its presence, signing agreements with UDCast, Xiplink, Trispen, Orbital Data Net and Broadcast International. Pradman Kaul, CEO of Hughes, finally will get to market the company’s Spaceway 3 satellite and its 68 Ka-band transponders, which is expected to become operational before the end of the first quarter. Hughes also made noise in early January, agreeing to acquire business IPTV solutions provider Helius Inc.
The launch industry also has the potential to provide plenty of 2008 candidates. Frank McKenna, president of International Launch Services (ILS) led a strong performance in the launch provider’s first year as an independent company marketing the Proton Breeze M vehicle, as the company recorded $1.5 billion in orders in 2007. Sea Launch and President and General Manager Robert Peckham also will be watched closely in 2008, as satellite operators look to see how well the company recovers from the January 2007 launch failure that cost Sea Launch a year of missions and some of its customers valuable time in orbit.
The two commercial satellite imagery competitors will step up their efforts in 2008 to develop the commercial imagery market using the latest-generation spacecraft. DigitalGlobe and President and CEO Jill Smith have opened up the company’s WorldView-1 satellite for commercial business. The spacecraft, together with the company’s QuickBird satellite will be able to collect up to 900,000 square kilometers per day of half-meter imagery. Rival GeoEye and CEO Matthew O’Connell are expected to place the company’s own second-generation imagery satellite, GeoEye-1, in orbit early in 2008.
Eric Beranger, CEO of Astrium Services, guided the company through an impressive 2007, overseeing acquisitions that expanded the company’s offerings and size, but the key to 2008 and beyond will be the new Skynet 5 military satellites placed into orbit in 2007. The spacecraft will provide communications services to the U.K. Ministry of Defense, NATO and other military customers through its Paradigm Secure Communications subsidiary under a new contract approach for Europe. If this outsourcing approaching proves successful, it could have a huge impact on the future of military communications.
A new company with a chance to make an impact in 2008 is ProtoStar, led by President and CEO Philip Father. The company’s ProtoStar-1 satellite is scheduled to be placed into orbit early this year. The business model calls for capacity on the satellite to be leased to third parties to provide digital direct-to-home services, high-definition TV and broadband Internet to underserved areas in Asia. ProtoStar already has signed agreements with companies such as Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organization, and PlanetSky Ltd. Also in Asia, it may be worth keeping an eye on Shin Satellite and Chairman Dumrong Kasemset and whether the company can make its ambitious IPStar satellite broadband service a success all across Asia.
Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin also remains a potential candidate for the same reason everyone watched him in 2007 — can he engineer the merger of Sirius and rival XM Satellite Radio? Karmazin’s plans remain on hold as various parts of the U.S. government continues to debate whether to approve the deal. If Karmazin can win that argument -— based on the contention that Sirius and XM are not competing against each other as much as competing against a broad variety of music providers — attention then turns to whether Karmazin can then lead the combined entity to success in the face of such competition.
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