(ATR) Atos is likely the only TOP Sponsor that measures its success in how little people talk about the company’s 2014 sponsorship.
Patrick Adiba, the IT giant’s Olympics CEO, tells Around the Rings if people talk about Atos, that likely means some aspect of their technology isn’t working.
"When I say that, I mean the general public," Adiba added.
Atos is a business-to-business sponsor, meaning it doesn’t provide consumer goods, like Coca-Cola, Samsung, or McDonald’s, for example.
"For our partners, we make a lot of noise to them about what we do," he added.
Atos, Adiba says, likes to compares itself to Olympians.
"The difference between athletes and Atos is that when they win, they are on top of the podium."
Luckily for Atos, there have been no incidents so far.
Adiba also said the company will measure its success of the Games by generating new business.
The access to data is one of the major new trends in IT with which it must cope in Sochi. The Games, Atos realized, "is big data in action."
For journalists, Atos created an information system accessible on any device - a Games first. Another first is the ability for broadcasters to have access to all scoring information, even if they are thousands of miles away from Sochi.
"Out of millions of terabytes of information, they want to find that one information for them," Adiba said of today’s users.
The exact amount of data processed by Atos during the Games is difficult to predict, said Adiba. He did say the volume is "huge and growing exponentially" every Olympics.
"That also means a lot of challenges," Adiba tells ATR. IT security is the biggest. He said Atos had to "enhance" its systems compared to Vancouver.
"The nature of the risk and threats are changing," he added.
Other Olympics debuts from Atos include RFID chips in all accreditation cards and the Olympic Video Player.
The Player is an app that broadcasters can offer their viewers. It allows fans to watch competition live or replayed, and enhance the footage with data.
Adiba said Atos’ biggest challenges included heading to a town without an Atos team and that everything in Sochi is new.
"That we had nothing until it was built was difficult because we had nothing we could anticipate. We couldn’t make any planning if the infrastructure didn’t exist."
He said Atos was only able to successfully complete its project with a "high level of trust" from Sochi 2014.
The rise of tablets and increased mobility of users is another challenge Atos has had to work with over the past few Games.
During Sochi, Atos will have a team of about 3,000 people. Of those, 300 will be experts from the company.
New technologies and their inherent difficulty to predict are a continual project for Atos. To manage, Adiba said the company looks at "big trends" rather than specific technologies. Atos also has a one-year cutoff for implementing new technology. If it isn’t available one year before the Games, it won’t be part of their Olympic package.
"It would be too dangerous for us to relay the information," he said.
Work for Rio is progressing well, Adiba said, and Atos is already in discussions with Tokyo 2020.
"We see that the committees are thinking about technology earlier and earlier," he said. "I think that’s very good."
He fully expects Rio to confirm the trends toward bigger data that is accessible on the move.
Written by Ed Hula III
Homepage photo: Atos
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