Just like the many others who have attended, I had some time to think over CES.
I’d like to share my take-away trends from this year’s convention, especially when looking at it from the viewpoint of the (small) VoIP industry I am part of.
The entrance to Samsung’s “booth” – an electronic kingdom at CES
- Consumer electronics is a world dominated by the east. Far East, that is. Japan and Korea virtually ruled the central show rooms, with very little European and American presence.
- Video telephony is not targeting consumers yet. Those that do provide such services think of SMBs first.
- Standalone Videophones always have additional features attached to them – a calendar, weather information, photos and other such widgets.
- Today’s consumer electronics are focused on LCD displays. From TVs to digital photo frames, LCDs were everywhere, on every possible surface of the show.
- TVs are becoming interactive by being connected to the web. This can be bad news to set-top box providers. It does give some hope for marrying VoIP with television sets (or living rooms).
- 3D sucks. Without those silly glasses, you need to find a secret little sweet spot in the room where you (might) get a feeling of a 3D image. With those silly glasses, you feel… well, silly, and you get a headache after 5-10 minutes. Someone needs to come up with better technology for this one.
- VoIP is dead. Not in the way Alec Saunders sees it, but due to the fact that VoIP wasn’t part of CES: there were phones at the show, but they were displayed as means of communication and not really VoIP. It seems that VoIP might be replacing the good old PSTN system, but it doesn’t bring anything noteworthy. Not to CES, at least. Not yet.
Tags: CES, consumer electronics, set-top box, SMBs, television, TV, Video telephony, videophone, VoIP, Widgets
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