Abstract. As field trials all over Europe show,Interactive Multimedia Services
(IMMS) are usually considered only for the market of private households with services
like Video on Demand and Teleshopping via TV and Set Top Box in the living room at home.
Pilot examples in Austria demonstrate that there are other ways to use the same technology
to realize interactive multimedia services for private and public companies and institutions.
In this respect, the customer premises equipment need not to be necessarily a TV set but
might be a PC representing a Point of Information or Point of Sale terminal
located in offices, in stores or even in schools. Calculations based on experiences
with an Austrian retailer who realised an interactive application predict
that by such an approach an economic break even can be reached within 2
years. In addition, a broader distribution in the market is reached much sooner than
by following the approach for the households mass market.