Not one but two different discs about Centurion, who would have thought that? Back in March we showed you this Centurion CD-i disc. Now it appears that a different, second one exists. Both Digital Video on CD-i, it is interesting to see if one is an update of the first one or that they have different angles on the big Philips re-organization that was happening around 1993, and also affected CD-i. The first one is about 'Building a Winning Company' and the new one is about 'A Process of Change'. Another detail is that the ones we showed you before (and was taken over by The World of CD-i) is the dutch version, and the one you see here is the english version. We expect to show you more soon of the contents.
The timeframe of CD-i captured a few remarkable events in the storyline of Philips. One interesting example is the Philips 100 event: Philips existed 100 years in 1991, a year that is within the lifespan of CD-i. Next to a book, Philips was in the position to create a modern interactive version on CD-i as well. Another example, to promote their Competence Centre and message of their Evoluon building, they produced a specific CD-i explaining everything about the Evoluon including the product catagories of Philips that were, at that time, exposed in the rings of the Evoluon. A third example is this one, Centurion. The reason why Philips created these kind of discs is simply because they could: Philips used to be a large company with all kinds of competences inhouse. Next to Air purifiers, they produced compact discs as well. So when a company like Philips was re-organizing (in a world without internet) - what way to distribute the business message would be better than CD-i? Both were made by Philips anyway. In this CD-i, you'll find the why and the how of the Centurion operation. Why is it needed to re-organize Philips, make the company smaller and more efficient? How did they plan to do this? The Centurion operation lasted between 1990-1996. The ironic part is that CD-i eventually was also killed in this Centurion operation as a final decision: Philips shut down all its media activities to focus more on certain core values. This CD-i disc was used for training purposes related to the Centurion project from Philips. The disc consists of three main parts, “The Company”, “Philips World” and “Centurion Info.” ‘The Company’ consists of six storylines with three acts including questions and answers. ‘Philips World’ consists of 6 small documentaries that make clear how the different parts of the Philips company have contributed to improve business operations. ‘Centurion Info’ is a small hypertext database that tells what Centurion is and what the ideas are behind it. The disc is made with two purposes: It is a training disc and serves as a stand-alone kiosk disc.
[Thanks, Steep Haywire, Julian de Backer]