<font color=SkyBlue>Philips to Enable Consumers with Easy Access to the Digital World
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CeBIT 2004: Announcement to Adopt Near Field Communications (NFC) in Future Connected Planet Products
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Hannover, Germany, March 17, 2004 - Royal Philips Electronics (AEX: PHI, NYSE: PHG), today confirmed that it was leading cross industry support for Near Field Communications (NFC), and that NFC is being adopted in future Philips' Connected Planet products. In addition, Philips confirmed details of an agreement with Nokia, Vodafone and Universal that will see the four companies partner to deliver consumers rich, multimedia DTV content onto their portable and mobile phone devices.
“We are leading the deployment of technologies such as NFC, WiFi and broadband that will enable consumers to easily access digital entertainment, information and services in any format. Through our collaboration with Visa we have fundamentally changed the way that consumers can access and now legally acquire digital entertainment, information or services,” said Dr. Gottfried Dutine, Executive Vice President Royal Philips Electronics and President & CEO of Philips Consumer Electronics at a press conference today in Hannover.
Philips' reaffirmed its strategic vision of Connected Planet by providing details in the mobile product domain of its pilot program with Nokia, Vodafone and Universal. This collaboration marks the convergence between consumer electronics, mobile communications and broadcast entertainment, to provide new digital multimedia services that would be available on portable devices such as laptops, web-pads, car devices and TV sets in and outside the home.
"This is a significant agreement that will see four companies coming together to deliver high-value broadcast content onto a wide variety of mobile devices. This is clearly a value-added service we believe has the potential to increase average revenue per user for the mobile industry," said Frans van Houten, Group Management Committee member and CEO of Philips' Consumer Electronics Business Groups. "Perhaps more importantly this agreement is also an example of how Philips is making inroads to provide digital entertainment content and services to the world of portable devices in an intuitive manner for the consumer, where and when they like to, while addressing any concerns from the content industries through a secure delivery mechanism," added van Houten.
Philips also announced its latest portable and mobile devices at CeBIT. The Philips HDD070 is a new 2 GB audio jukebox - just the size of a credit card - that includes a built-in FM radio, and can store up to 500 tracks in MP3 format. Philips also introduced a breakthrough in multimedia messaging with its Philips 755 mobile phone. Its unique ‘Snap, Tag & Send' functionality makes it easy to send personalized photos, drawings and even handwritten notes to family and friends.
Photos can be taken in just a moment with the integrated VGA camera. Then they can be creatively edited on the phone itself, ‘tagged' by writing or drawing directly on the phone's touch screen with the stylus pen, and sent in just a few seconds.
Finally, Philips has turned the camcorder into a wearable device. The KeyRing 019 is the world's most compact, wearable product, which allows consumers to both capture digital video and photographs, and carry their music and data with them in the form of a USB stick. It is capable of up to 25 minutes of continuous video recording, or can snap up to 200 still photos with 2 megapixel image quality.
In response to the current debate about the so-called battle for the living room, Dutiné said: "While PC hardware and software vendors encroach on traditional CE markets, each trying to deliver home entertainment solutions, Philips continues to play in both industries and is well placed to achieve significant growth as a result. Equally important, Philips is uniquely positioned to deliver rich, multimedia entertainment services, as well as interactive, personalized healthcare services to consumers within the digital home based on its competencies in storage, display, and connectivity," said Dutiné. "We believe that demand for these services will be driven by wireless home networking and we are ideally position to ride that wave."
In this context Dutiné underlined Philips' recent alliances with major telecoms providers including Deutsche Telekom's T-Com, France Telecom, BT, Telecom Italia, Belgacom, KPN and Telefónica to deliver high-value broadband services across Europe. As a next step, Philips is in discussions with its telecom partners about a go-to-market strategy for delivering digital patient monitoring services to European households.
Philips also continues to lead in delivering home entertainment solutions and at CeBIT, Philips will be demonstrating the latest additions to Philips' Streamium family of products that enable the wireless transmission of digital media content throughout PC and A/V environments. Philips will begin adding Streamium functionality to its TV range this year, with the introduction of an LCD Flat TV with WiFi enabled broadband connection.
Dutiné went on to confirm that Philips' vision of the Connected Planet promised a further evolution beyond the home environment into new digital domains such as the automotive arena. "Consumers expect the same quality and choice of infotainment in their cars as they have at home and in many cases the car is already equipped with CD, DVD or MP3 players that allow the driver to take their stored music from their home. We are working with our automotive partners to provide drivers with a seamless entertainment and information experience as a natural extension of our Connected Planet vision," Dutiné said.
For further information about Philips' activities at CeBIT including speeches by Philips executives, and press releases, please click the link below:
www.philips.com/cebit
About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR 29 billion in 2003. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, and one-chip TV products. Its 164,500 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, semiconductors, and medical systems. Philips is quoted on the NYSE (symbol: PHG), Amsterdam and other stock exchanges. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter
March 17, 2004
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