Retail Vision Europe Spring 2008 - Who's a Winner?
Awards, awards, awards…vendors love awards and clamor to get more and more of them to use in their promotion. In order to value any industry award, you have to know 1) Who decides who gets the award? i.e., who are the judges?2) In what context is the award given? i.e., why this award? Retail Vision is a focused event, so the awards are focused on the vendors attending a specific Retail Vision event (in this case, Spring 2008 in Rome.) The awards are voted on by the attending retailers, so these are awards reflecting popular vote. To put this in perspective, think about the reality television programmes (like American Idol or your national equivalent for hopeful rock stars): in one case, hard-to-please judges are deciding who stays and who goes but at another point the public gets to vote for their favorite. When there’s a popular vote, criteria tend to slide in favour of…well, popularity! I have seen cases where the vendor winning the Best Retail Strategy never even had one…and admitted it. But yet retailers voted for this company…why? I think the answer is that this is a popular vote and what the retailers are trying to tell you is that they believe—if the company did develop an official retail strategy, then it would be a good one. Let’s call this “a vote of confidence.” These awards tell you that—at this point in time—these companies are doing something right to earn the respect of retailers. Other retailers will listen to that advice—and then, of course, decide about the veracity based on their own experiences. Now, without further ado, we present the 2008 Winners… RetailVision Europe Spring 2008 Nominees and Award Winners
Support Grows for Universal Power Adapter
Driven by the proliferation of devices like cell phones, MP3 players and digital cameras, at least 3 billion power adapters will be shipped worldwide this year, up from 2.2 billion only three years ago.
Find a way to eliminate the need to ship a separate power adapter to convert AC into the required DC power for each and every electronics device…and you’ve found a technology that can really help the environment.
And that’s exactly what one start-up company has found: Green Plug's technology allows each device to communicate its individual power requirements to the power adapter, allowing several devices to share one adapter.
Overall success depends on getting support from manufacturers who will embed Green Plug's firmware into their devices so power requirements can be communicated to the adapter. Green Plug offers its firmware to electronics makers for free (they hope to make money by licensing the technology to chip-makers.) Vendors who want to include the technology in each device may spend about $2 to do so.
At the second meeting of the Alliance for Universal Power Supplies (group of electronics vendors, power supply makers, utility companies and others promoting standard power systems), Westinghouse Electronics publicly signed on for Green Plug.
Westinghouse, American maker of LCD TVs, PC monitors and digital photo frames, hopes its commitment to use Green Plug’s single "universal adapter" to power their laptops, cell phones and other electronics gear will inspire other makers.
What’s holding up such a great idea if it’s free? Some companies think if they ship a product without an adapter, the consumer may worry and decide to buy a competitive product that does offers one.
Other vendors don't want to eliminate unique power supplies (and connector cables) as they represent high margin add-on profits for the company.
And some company lawyers are worried about liability. Unless it is an industry standard, any company connected could be sued in USA if a fire starts in a home around the devices.
Go Green Plug
Panasonic goes Gaming
Panasonic’s PT-AX200 is designed for watching sports events or playing video games in daylight conditions or for viewing movies in a dark room. 2000-lumen brightness and new Light Harmonizer 2 technology make it easy for people to enjoy vibrant images even if they don't have a special theater room. |
Medialine First: LCD TV & PVR-HDD Combo
NBMI’s Medialine 2000H is a 20’’ widescreen Combo LCD TV with a built in 160GB hard disk with PVR recording and built-in media player.  It features a standard built in DVBT/TDT/TNT digital terrestrial tuner. A recording schedule can be entered via the EPG with an 8-days ahead schedule with a max of 6 recordings. Live recording is possible when watching a channel, just simply push the RED button on the remote and your TV immediately starts recording the current program. Go NBMI’s Medialine 2000H |
www.nbmi.nl
"Consumer Electronics 3.0,” Says Intel
Intel is promoting “Consumer Electronics 3.0”. Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO, says CE 1.0 was the era when consumer electronics were analog. CE 2.0 came along when digital television and HDTV were invented. Consumer Electronics 3.0 is the marriage of internet with TV.
The living room of the digital home will provide a new environment for the mass market consumption of software-based services and applications, ranging from online games and video phone communications to e-learning. But to move this vision closer to reality, Intel says we need to make these applications and services easy to develop and deploy – and easy for people to use. The emerging digital home is projected to be a networked environment, filled with a spectrum of connected devices, from digital TVs and set top boxes to home media servers, digital media adapters and handheld devices.
Here are just a few of the requirements:
- Research to identify connected usage models that consumers want
- Standards for accessibility to the digital home; accessibility to content within the home; device and network connectivity; device interoperability, and platform support
- Open, standards-based software development/deployment frameworks
- Sophisticated software applications (local and hosted)
- Processing intelligence and flexible functionality in CE clients
- Advanced UI development and intelligent search & browse solutions
- Ecosystem of hardware and software solutions providers
- New revenue models (services, advertising) to support content
Intel is involved in each of those areas.
After stumbling with concepts like Viiv in the past, Intel says “One thing seems certain. As IP services, applications and usage models evolve, service providers will need to deploy new services on a continuous basis. Cost-effective multifunction client devices with the headroom to handle new applications and services will play an important role in this dynamic, service-driven environment.”
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