Since 1991, Gerry Kaufhold has been with In-Stat, creating business models that are capable of predicting the dynamics of products for emerging, high technology marketplaces. He brings a unique and powerful insight to his analysis.

Gerry Kaufhold founded, and is a Principal Analyst for, In-Stat's Converging Markets And Technologies Information Research Service. He analyzes technology trends in the Multimedia industry, and forecasts the growth of emerging Multimedia applications that are delivered over Ethernet, Cable TV, Satellite, Wireless and Digital Terrestrial network systems.

Prior to joining In-Stat, he was new Business Development Manager for ST Microelectronics (formerly SGS-Thomson) and Linear Corporation. He was also Chief Engineer for commercial broadcast stations, and a contributing editor to Broadcast Engineering Magazine. He is a frequent contributor to Multichannel News and other industry journals. Mr. Kaufhold is frequently quoted in industry publications and other broadcast media, and he is a popular speaker at industry conferences with his wry style. His education is in physics and computer engineering.

Kaufhold has initiated several new services for In-Stat. The Multimedia Service reports on trends in the set top box business, including technology issues and five-year product forecasts. The Digital TV Service "took the bull by the horns" and began predicting markets for emerging Digital TV products and services. In-Stat's Digital TV service was expanded during 2001 to include "Markets for Multimedia Broadband Services and Infrastructure, or MBSI.

Kaufhold coined the term "freckle effect" to describe the neighborhood-by-neighborhood rollouts of multimedia broadband networks. If you place a colored pin in a map to indicate the kind of broadband service available by neighborhood, you wind up with a pattern of colored dots, or "freckles" with white space in between. From a consumer perspective, high-speed "Internet-like" content will arrive using branded delivery systems, and those companies that own the brand names will pre-program and edit the multimedia content so that it best serves the capabilities of their particular delivery system.

The "freckle effect" also applies to business access services, with selected areas having Gigabit Ethernet Metro Area Networks, other areas using DSL services, and still others using fixed wireless or cable modems.

Gerry Kaufhold has successfully forecast the growth of CD-ROM drives for personal computers, as well as market shares for worldwide unit shipments of MPEG-related semiconductor devices. In a 1997 report about the video game industry, he correctly forecast that Sony would ship 47 million units of their popular PlayStation console by the end of Calendar 1998. Sony announced the shipment of their 50 millionth PlayStation in March of 1999.

Currently, his focus is forecasting the growth of Markets for Multimedia Broadband service, which entails covering Cable TV, digital telephone systems, digital terrestrial broadcastnetworks, wireless cable TV and video game consoles. This research includes extensive discussion about the impact of the World Wide Web and electronic commerce.