The Master of Accessories was next to me, standing on the ultimate accessory, a Segway, further emboldened by a red Porsche logo. 

Noel Lee, president and CEO of Monster Cable, doesn’t need a Porsche Segway to highlight his status. After all, most in the business would agree Noel invented the category of cable accessories for audio.

“Come see this demo”, invites the Head Monster, leading the way on the Segway, looking very much like a general headed for a mortar shooting demonstration. Noel is a natural leader, a good marshal to his troops.

We roll up to the front of a full technical demo where a Monster-ling has just finished a demo for some of France’s top big box retailers. As a new Monster demo begins, Noel spots a mistake on one of the cable speed signs above the test equipment. He interrupts the presenter, “The Hertz rate on that sign is wrong, isn’t it?” 

“Uh, that’s what we’ve had up for the last three weeks,” offers the presenter, squirming slightly. 

“Well, it is wrong, isn’t it?”  

The presenter looks at the sign carefully, wishing he could change it instantly with some Jedi mind trick. “Uh, yes, I guess so,” he admits. 

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There is a missing link, we believe, in the press reports surrounding Best Buy’s decision to acquire Napster.

No one yet has linked the new Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE is a consortium of Hollywood studios, retailers and tech companies) to the deal.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Comcast Corp. with with tech giants Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Philips, Toshiba and Verisign have all invested in the undertaking.

Oh, yes...so did Best Buy.

DECE wants a new standard for the transfer and storage of copyrighted digital content that will knock out Apple.

The new DRM aims to let videos purchased at any outlet be played on any device worldwide, under a unified brand and logo. DECE will allow an unlimited number of copies of a video to be created or burned onto a disc.

Nobody knows much about the new DECE yet. You’ll see all this unveil at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Best Buy foresees Napster acting as their own platform for accelerating their growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions. They will leverage existing relationships with the labels, the studios, and the hardware providers.

DECE will (in theory) level the playfield and Napster will allow Best Buy to earn its position in digital music space as it did in selling CDs (a major position in USA.)