New products, deals at gadget show
DVDs, home networking are popular at annual electronics shindig
Rob Duncan, a senior project engineer for Panasonic, holds a concept model of a DVD-RAM camcorder at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Thursday.
By Jerry Cobb
CNBC
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 7 — The theme of this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is “convergence.” The word describes the on-going integration of the personal computer into just about every kind of electronic appliance imaginable. In addition to generating a slew of products, this trend is also posing new challenges for the industry.
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS makers have high hopes for 1999. They point to stronger-than-expected holiday sales of digital video disk machines as just the latest piece of evidence that U.S. consumers are hungry for new gadgets.
“This holiday season, retailers actually ran out of DVDs. Sales exceeded our expectations, and that is a great indicator for 1999,” said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association.
DVD is expected to replace home video sales over the next decade and to spur sales of new digital TV sets as well as new audio systems that take full advantage of the rich format.
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“We're seeing an increase in sales of Dolby Digital DTS-ready receivers and larger screen size televisions because now with DVD you can give a consumer a true cinema-quality experience right in their home,” said Jodi Sally of Panasonic.
The rapid growth in Internet usage is also spawning new products and new players in the consumer arena.
News of a partnership between Cisco Systems, General Instrument and AT&T is just the latest example of how technology companies are cooperating to deliver voice, data and video service to the home over a single network.
“With this integrated service over cable, for instance, you can have an environment where you're watching your show on a video window and at the same time you have a window open to surf the Web. If the phone rings because you have to pick up the kid, you can answer that too. It can all happen from one coordinated point,” said Don Listwin of Cisco.
Howard Stringer, president, Sony Corp. of America
Home networking is another big trend this year. Companies like Sharewave are showing off technology that links PCs, TVs, printers and other peripherals in the home. The devices allow people to use the technology from different locations.
But the convergence of computers and consumer electronics will require new partnerships and new business models for both industries. It's an enormous challenge, according to Sony Corp. of America president Howard Stringer.
“It's easy not to cooperate. It's easy to wait for the next revolutionary development. But surely it's better to combine and cooperate so that we can get things going much faster and reach the consumer earlier,” he said.
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