Abstract
The basic positioning of the CES and CeBIT exhibitions is different; CES focuses on consumer electronics, while CeBIT focuses on the ICT industry. However, with the emergence of the digital home concept, many products are being re-positioned and given new functions and capabilities. Responding to this new emphasis on the digital home, PC vendors have been expanding their product lines, trying to ensure that they will benefit from the next wave of industry growth. As a result, not only are the boundaries between trade shows becoming blurred, a number of different products are competing for a prominent place in the digital home. This report presents observations from 2006 International CES and CeBIT 2006, and provides a comparative analysis of products that PC vendors are introducing to target the digital home market.
HD to Become Focus of Digital Home Product Development
From the products and concepts on display at 2006 International CES and CeBIT 2006, it is clear that both PC vendors and consumer electronics brands will be focusing heavily on high definition in 2006; high definition will constitute the main axis of development in digital home products.
Products being showcased at CES and CeBIT emphasized the ability to provide high resolution ?1080i or 1080p, including LCD TVs. The competition between next-generation optical storage standards ?Blu-Ray and HD DVD ?is heating up, while Sony has adopted the concept "Higher Definition" as the basis for developing products that will provide consumers with higher picture quality.
In the digital home era, most content will be transmitted using digital signals rather than analog signals. High definition will no longer be enough; vendors will be working to develop the highest possible levels of resolution and picture quality.
Entertainment and Content ?the Two Main Pillars Supporting New Product Development
If PC products are to exploit the digital home trend and establish themselves in the living room, PC vendors will need to abandon their traditional emphasis on computing power. Instead, they will need to focus on such things as entertainment. As new technologies and new platforms are developed, it will become easier for 3C products to integrate different functions in line with this new emphasis.
Judging from the products on display at CES and CeBIT, both component suppliers and PC system vendors are all beginning to make the entertainment aspect an important feature of their new product planning. Even Dell, which has traditionally focused on the corporate market, was showcasing a new-generation gaming PC at CES. Among Japanese component makers and PC brands, the emphasis on entertainment is even more pronounced.
Without suitable sources of content, even the best hardware and communications technology will be unable to stimulate any significant increase in consumer demand. Both Microsoft and Intel have been stepping up their collaboration with content providers, and companies such as Yahoo! and Google, which started out as search engines, are now repositioning themselves as content providers. In the future, identifying potential sources of content and then managing these sources effectively will be one of the most important aspects of product development.