Esslinger Data Engineering 1993 - 2008

		1993 Esslinger Data Engineering was founded in 1993 by Mr. Bernd Esslinger, two years after he received his degree in electronics engineering. The company had its start at Mönchengladbach, next to Düsseldorf. Esslinger's focus was on developing hard- and software for microcontroller-based infrared remote controls for TV sets and VCRs. The company was furthermore involved in electronics developments around TV satellite reception.
		1994 At home in the consumer electronics world, the RDS product line was started in 1994. The background was a patent the Esslinger company was awarded for a vehicle theft protection system, which was primarily based upon RDS datacasting. For a proof of concept, talks with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Cologne (WDR) were started in 1994, in order to perform field tests together with automotive partners.
		1995 One year later, Esslinger Data Engineering established an RDS partnership with the Deutsche Textfunk GmbH (DeTex), a joint-venture company of Deutsche Telekom and Télédiffusion de France (TDF). DeTex operated the (one and only) German nationwide RDS-based paging service "omniport" from 1995 to 1998.

		1995 Esslinger Engineering company´s close relationships with broadcasters, mainly the WDR in Cologne and the Deutsche Telekom, paved the way for other datacasting solutions than RDS and the DAB product line was born.
		1995 - 2000 Esslinger Data Engineering was privileged to be able to join the DAB pilot project in North-Rhine Westphalia from its inception in 1995. Much expertise and numerous industrial contacts were gained during the time between 1995 and 2000. Many doors were opened with the valuable support of Mr. Thomas Wächter, Deutsche Telekom, and Dr. Hermann Lossau, governmental representative within the DAB pilot project society.
		1998 During the DAB pilot phase, close contacts were also established with the German DAB platform at Munich, with the Bavarian DAB pilot project and particularly with Grundig as its main DAB receiver supplier.
		1996 - 2000 Between 1996 and 2000 the Esslinger roots, infrared technology, were revived by designing protocol stacks according to the well-known IrDA standard. Esslinger IrDA technology was used in products mainly from the PC peripherials and printer world. In late 2000 the entire IrDA product range was sold to allow us to fully focus on the key business, DAB and RDS.
		2003 Highly charged by a complex DAB customer project, we almost missed to celebrate the company's tenth birthday :-)
		2004 - 2008 A number of prestigeous DAB challenges were won during these years, such as: 2004: Development of a portable, small, standalone DAB data receiver for the Wallonian Ministry of Transportation. This receiver, with its mimimalistic hardware design, founded our CDR product line. 2005: Development of the Cabvision DAB receiver unit, and providing technical DAB consulting to the Cabvision London consortium. The Cabvision receiver was the first one that employed our new, embedded DAB Software Toolkit. The design comes with an onboard MOT decoder, a filesystem and a file server. Still 2005: Esslinger becomes development partner of  Atmel's DAB department and licenses data service decoding IP for usage within Atmel's ATR2740 DAB Digital Processing Device. 2006: Premium car manufacturer Audi decides to license Esslinger's DAB data service processing for their next generation of vehicles. The solution we've proposed to Audi is a modified variant of the well-tried Cabvision design, which has been operating since 2005 in hundreds of London taxis. The Audi design fully incorporates our embedded DAB Software Toolkit. 2007: Part of SAAB's onboard navigation systems are equiped with Esslinger's RDS decoders. 2008: Audi starts to sell Esslinger's DAB data technology in their A5, A6, A8, Q5 and Q7 series (A4 to follow in early 2009).
		Today about 60% of our turnaround falls to DAB developments and consulting. The remaining 40% are achieved by our RDS product line and by various other services. Although it is no secret that the world has struggled to accept DAB, we are proud to say that our DAB department has been profitable since 1998. Interest in our RDS reception technology has received a great push during the recent years, thanks to the fact that more and more broadcasters throughout the world switch to RDS, providing good and helpful contents (such as the Traffic Message Channel TMC). The Esslinger company handles radio broadcasting projects from all around the world and has representatives in France and in the USA. See this page for a list of reference customers.