HTNG's Most Innovative Hospitality Technology of 2012 Award Given to Personal Media Network from Quadriga

Runners Up Were Enseo's HD4000 Cable Solution and Mobile Key Trio from OpenWays

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. March 11, 2013

CHICAGO - March 11, 2013 - Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG), the membership association that unites the world's hospitality companies and technology innovators to solve industry challenges, today announced that its member hoteliers had voted to award the 2012 “Most Innovative Hospitality Technology Award” to the Personal Media Network™ from Quadriga. The award is given annually to the technology that became available for use at hotels during the previous year.

Voters selected this year's winners from a diverse field of 22 hospitality technology entrants. Product entries covered a very broad range of hospitality technologies that included entertainment systems, network management technologies, guest room devices and communications gear as well as revenue management and front and back office tools and systems.

“The shift toward mobile devices, especially in the guest entertainment arena, has been the biggest emerging issue of the past year,” said Douglas Rice, HTNG's Executive Vice President and CEO. “The winners have shown that the vendor community has risen to the challenge and developed important new products to address the rapidly changing needs of hotels and guest.”

Quadriga describes their winning Personal Media Network™ (PMN) as enabling guests to more efficiently stream content to their in-room TVs while also helping hotels optimize their HSIA/Wi-Fi network infrastructure. This provides hotels with a means of reducing the costs that mobile devices and streaming place on the hotel's network infrastructure. PMN pairs devices such as the TV, smart phone, tablet or laptop, and makes content stored on the guest device or Video on Demand (VOD) system portable, enabling movies, videos, photos, music, and TV programming to be viewed across all screen-based devices from anywhere within the hotel Wi-Fi area.

“We are very proud and honored to receive this award,” said Roger Taylor, CEO of Quadriga. “Reshaping our products and services to embrace content-on-demand anywhere in the property and helping hoteliers optimize their networks to accommodate new technologies is a core focus of our business. Importantly, at the heart of our vision and design of Personal Media Network is a dynamic product that through its existing and future modules can be tailored and evolve with hoteliers and guests needs; and we look forward to introducing further excitement and innovation for our customers.”

The first runner-up technology was the HD4000®, Enseo's cable television solution product, which enables hotels to eliminate expensive cable television head-end equipment and still offer a full in-room channel lineup. Similar to a residential cable box, the HD4000 allows an encrypted cable feed directly to the hotel room. Whether a property has 50 rooms or 250+, HD content is delivered directly to the guest room without expensive hotel-based transcription equipment, which has been an impediment for smaller hotels being able to implement HD. Enseo says that the HD4000 provides hospitality features and compatibility that hoteliers expect, like TV control, one remote and a hotel-branded interactive program guide and welcome page.

“This award is a testament to the very nature of why HTNG works for both hoteliers and vendors,” said Vanessa Ogle, Chairman and CEO of Enseo. “The hoteliers told us in an HTNG workgroup that they needed a product to provide true hospitality features using cable company infrastructure for their hotels. We have now delivered that product. Participation with HTNG enabled us to invest in innovation that truly makes a difference in the hospitality industry.”

The second runner-up was OpenWays Mobile Key Trio with Triple Play Reader. The reader enables hoteliers to upgrade their existing locking systems with a solution that provides hotel guests with the ability to use their mobile phone as a room key, bypassing front desk check-in lines. It is a “triple play” because it combines three card-reading capabilities into one device - CAC™ (Crypto Acoustic Credential), Pure NFC™ and RFID. Guests can use the Mobile Key version while staff can use the Mobile Master Key. OpenWays promises that when hotels refresh existing locks with the Mobile Key Trio, they gain a truly deployable, secure, mobile-based room-key solution that is 100% compatible with all mobile phones, 100% future proof and 0% mobile carrier dependent. "Being named a runner up for this high profile technology award is a real honor, as it substantiates OpenWays' commitment to providing secure mobile access solutions that deliver line-busting benefits to guests while driving a hotel's mobile strategy," said Pascal Metivier, OpenWays Founder and CEO.

This year's voting was the highest vote totals in the history of the competition. Other contestants included (in alphabetic order, by vendor name):

Cardola - Virtual Hotel
Cisco - Connected Mobile Experience
Crestron - Fusion Enterprise Management Platform
DCI - VCore
Duetto Research - Duetto Edge
Elfiq Networks - Elfiq App Optimizer
ENTIRETEC AG - CLT Sector
FCS Computer Systems - FCS e-Recovery
Fingi - Guest Communication Center (GCC)
Hilton Worldwide - The Point
Infor - Workspace for Hospitality Solutions
Intelity - Conrad Concierge
KoolConnect - VU
Northwind Canada - Guest Experience Measurement (GEM)
MICROS & MerchantLink - MICROS OPERA w/TransactionShield® & TransactionVault™
Motorola Solutions - SL7550 Portable Radio
OpenMarket - Mobile Engagement Platform
Pegasus - OpenFlex
SOLiD - Infinity Access Fiber to the Room Solution
The winner and runners-up can immediately start using the award's seal on product promotional information and packaging. The HTNG website has descriptions and links to all contestants from its 2012 Innovation Competition page at http://htng.org/innovation-award/2012-miht/all-2012-entrants . More information about the award and details about winners from previous years of the award are available from the award's web page: http://www.htng.org/innovation-award

About Hotel Technology Next Generation
The premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG is a self-funded, nonprofit organization with members from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards. Where necessary, it also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.

Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, academics, press and others. Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including most of the world's leading hotel companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's Board of Governors, consisting of 19 top IT leaders from hotel companies around the world, itself has responsibility for about 3.5 million guest rooms. HTNG publishes workgroup proceedings, drafts and specifications for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. Specifications are released to the public domain as they are ratified by the workgroups. For more information, visit www.htng.org.

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