France Telecom in the UK, under the brand name Orange, is starting the transition of separating consumer services from the access business. Orange UK customers of the “Orange Home & Mobile Broadband” service will, aside from getting dual play services at home, also get a USB dongle for the PC, with a monthly downstream traffic allowance of 3GB per month to ensure Internet access at home and while mobile on the PC. It does not include Internet traffic for their cellular subscribers which would have been ideal for a more complete service transformation, however this is likely due to the much broader organisational issues this would have caused for France Telecom. The 3G dongle for the PC is just a small step, but it is a step in the right direction of viewing services more independently of the access technology. Read more

Today the consumer electronics giants Samsung and Sony published new financial information. Samsung released its Q3 2008 results, while Sony provided revised consolidated forecasts for its financial year. The markets sent Samsung into a free fall, and ended down 13.8%. Sony fared hardly any better, and was down 12%. Expect similar free falls as other vendors release more financial information and the market understands the gloomy situation the consumer electronics industry is facing in the run up for Christmas....... Read more

After a week in Japan for the consumer electronics tradeshow CEATEC in Tokyo, my alarm clocks are sounding off. The total amount of visitors was sharply down. There was no clear theme for the show, as it covers component sourcing, manufacturing equipment, semiconductors, and all the way over to consumer end devices. The show therefore sits between the traditional B2B trade show, and on the other hand, consumer marketing shows. In ways, it is neither fish nor fowl. This is a major challenge for the event. Hopefully the CEATEC organisers will define a clear theme and market position for next year. However, this is not to say that CEATEC is without value, but the show is undergoing an identity crisis. Many new technologies were on show, especially around interactivity, connectivity, and content.

Almost every consumer electronics vendor showed products with Internet connectivity. Last year was the year for Internet connected TVs, and this year was no exception. Read more

During the IFA Messe Samsung, Panasonic and Philips provided further details on their Internet-connected TV products. Enabling Internet services and developing network awareness is seen as the next big thing for most consumer electronics vendors around the world.

Samsung announced TVs using its Infolive Internet TV service, Panasonic showed Vieracast-enabled TVs, while Philips provided further information on its CE-HTML TVs, following the completion of the trials in The Netherlands.

However, vendors stand a great chance of failure with these products due to the complexity of the products and services. Premonvision advises consumer electronics vendors that target this market to: Read more