On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

FAPAE (the Spanish producers association) president Pedro Perez says Netflix will launch in Spain on January 2012, ScreenDaily reports.

Perez says Netflix is contacting various Spanish producers ahead of its launch.

Netflix's choice of Spain to make its European debut is interesting-- known for rampant piracy, Spain is on the IP Alliance's piracy offendors watchlist with an estimatedng 400M illegal movie downloads yearly (compared to yearly cinema ticket sales totalling 100M).

One Spanish distributor (part of local streaming service Filmin) believes the country lacks subscriber numbers to believe a market exist for the likes of Netflix.

Apple launched its iTunes store in Spain back in November-- only to report continually low sales figures.

Netflix should also explore other European countries next year, with a UK launch expected by early 2012.

Go Netflix to Launch in Spain in January 2012 (ScreenDaily)

Global consumer digital information and entertainment product and service spending reaches $2 trillion in 2010 according to Gartner-- and should grow to $2.1Tr by 2011, before reaching $2.8Tr in 2015.

The analyst describes this spending as a "consumer wallet" made of 3 spending types-- content, devices and services. Vendors offering a diversified product/service portfolio being a better chance to seize a larger share of the consumer wallet.

The largest part-- 62%, or $1.2 trillion-- of 2010's consumer spending goes into communications subscription-based access and storage services, including mobile and wired voice services, mobile data services (such as SMS and broadband), fixed broadband services, video services (such as pay TV subscriptions) and online gaming.

$600 billion (28%) go for CE devices, including mobile/handheld devices, PCs (and related equipment) and stationary entertainment equipment (such as TVs and game consoles).

The smallest spending segment (10%, or $200Bn) goes into content and software spending--  with 50% going into video content (both purchased, rented, streamed and downloaded content and premium channel/PPV/VOD) and 50% going into PC and gaming software, digital music and books, and mobile app store purchases.

Customers are moving their spending from one segment to another-- from physical content (CDs, DVDs, books) to online/digital versions, and linear broadcast TV to OTT and on-demand video.

Such alternate services generate business (and consumer spending) through either the replacement or adding to legacy products and services.

Gartner describes the 3 key technology ares to provide vendors with the best business opportunities over the next 3 years-- wireless broadband, location-based services (LBS) and operating systems.

Go Gartner Says Consumers on Track to Spend $2.1 Trillion

Razer announces a Battlefield 3-branded peripheral and accessory line, just in time for the much-anticipated game's launch later this year.

Battlefield 3-branded peripherals include special editions of Razer's BlackWidow Ultimate mechanical keyboard, Imperator gaming mouse, Scarab hard mouse mat and Onza Tournament Edition Xbox 360 controller.

Also available as part of the Battlefeld 3-themed collection are an iPhone 4 silicon case and a messenger bag, ideal for customers wanting to truly show their loyalty to their online shooter of choice.

All the above will come decorated with what Razer describes as "awesome, gritty artwork straight from the game."

Go Razer Battlefield 3 Armoury

It's true: even the leader of the PC business wants out. In a decision that makes competitor IBM look like it really is from a "smarter planet," Hewlett-Packard now confirms it wants to sell off its PC business, the HP Personal Systems Group. If it can't sell HP PSG, it may spin out the division.

Where is that line between being proud and being arrogant? HP is like last year's Prom Queen... It must grate on HP that the pissant Apple now is bigger and has more cash...that IBM looks smarter as it dumped PCs ages ago... and that Google came out of nowhere to become "The Company That Everyone Hates, I Mean Envies." Even Facebook gets more glory these days than the Number One in PCs and peripherals.

HP PSG at $41 billion represents nearly a third of the company’s overall revenue but only 13% of the group’s earnings from operations. Yep, it takes home a pittance from all that work to face Wall Street each quarter and report on the roller coaster known as PC hardware.

The new CEO Léo Apotheker is the ex-CEO of SAP, and never a lover of hardware. His new, announced plan:

• Move HP into higher value, higher margin growth categories
• Sharpen HP’s focus on its strategic priorities of cloud, solutions and software with an emphasis on enterprise, commercial and government markets
• Increase investment in innovation to drive differentiation

This also means HP will kill the WebOS device business. Their announcement says TouchPad and webOS phones are to die, but the implication is  WebOS software may be sold while still alive.

In another strategic move, HP is already in discussions to buy Autonomy Corp., the database search software company.

All these moves would seem to reshape HP into an enterprise software and services company. Just like IBM.

Oddly enough, HP's announcement to get out of hardware will probably add more pressure to Google's decision to acquire Motorola Mobility.