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Lines separating PCs and electronics get fainter

Posted on: Friday, 19 March 2004, 06:00 CST

What does Philips, a Dutch consumer electronics company that makes a broad range of products from light bulbs to television sets, have in common with Universal the movie studio, Vodafone the telecom company and Nokia the cellphone maker?

Usually, not much. But in an era when the lines separating personal computers, entertainment and consumer electronics are fuzzy at best, a deal announced on Wednesday for Philips to work with the three other companies to introduce digital television broadcasts on portable devices seems logical.

The fact that it was announced at the Cebit trade fair devoted to office and information technology here, where 30 years ago electronic adding machines were a highlight, shows a further mix and match of today's digital businesses.

The Philips-Universal-Vodafone-Nokia service is being tested in Berlin and will provide digital multimedia services for laptops, PC tablets, car devices and TV sets.

The lines between the PC and audiovisual markets have been blurring for years. Now, portable devices are entering into the equation. Many products that marry mobile devices with the TV, for example, will be on display this week at stands throughout the halls of Cebit.

The barriers between IT, mobile telecoms and consumer electronics are breaking down, and the whole market is expanding, Kunitake Ando, president of Sony, said in remarks to open Cebit on Wednesday evening. A world of connected devices is emerging with new applications and content.

Including portable devices in the convergence equation creates tremendous opportunities for the industry and its customers, executives and analysts say, considering that there are 1.2 billion mobile phone users worldwide, as well as millions of PDAs, gaming devices and portable computers.

But that does not mean it is any easier. For years, companies like Sony and Philips have struggled to do it all and get it right. Sony has owned movie and music content for some 15 years yet has not been able to fully leverage it, in the view of many. Now that more of the necessary building blocks are in place like widespread access to fast Internet services Sony thinks it can finally do so, Ando said in an interview.

Pressplay, one of the earliest online music services and a joint venture between Sony and Vivendi Universal, was a failure because it was too complex, he said. By contrast, he said, Apple Computer had created a portable music player and service, iPod and iTunes, that were simple and easy to use. Apple got ahead of us, Ando said. Sony's second attempt at an online music service, called Connect, is to start in Europe in June and will work with Sony portable music players, including the new Hi-MD Walkman.

Sony also said Wednesday that it was designing a new content service for mobile phones that would allow users to create their own personal radio stations. The first such service will be introduced by Telia Sonera of Finland in the second quarter. And Sony plans to do more to marry its other consumer electronics products with portable devices, Ando said.

The combination of audiovisual products with mobile connectivity is very key to creating a ubiquitous networking environment, he said.

Mobile phone companies, which want to do the same thing, are right behind Sony. Nokia, for example, is entering the fray on several fronts. The company said at Cebit that it would sell this year an Image Album, a book-size device for 400, or $490, with a hard drive that hooks up to TV sets. The idea is to use the device for storage of multimedia content downloaded from mobile phones.

Users would be able to transfer digital pictures, video clips and messages from their mobile phones, store them on the Image Album and then view and edit them on their TV. Images can be transferred from some models of mobile phones using Bluetooth or infrared technology, but the device also receives and stores images from regular digital cameras or from memory cards.

Nokia also announced a portable device about the size of a cigarette pack called the Nokia Image Viewer, which allows users to hook their phones to any TV set to view pictures snapped by their phones. Photos can be viewed as single images or as a slide show.

And Nokia introduced the Nokia Mediamaster 260 C digital cable TV receiver, which allows users yet another way to create digital albums for personal pictures transferred from camera phones via wireless technology.

Competitors from the consumer electronics sector said they were not sure Nokia's Image Album would resonate with consumers. I doubt people will pay 400 for a dedicated photo storage device when they can already store pictures on a DVD recorder or use a cable converter between phone and their TV or just insert a memory card in their TV, said Frans van Houten, chief executive of Philips's consumer electronics business group.

To that end, Philips is displaying at Cebit a variety of devices that marry mobile devices with the TV. One is a flat-panel display TV that has integrated wireless Internet access. Philips also has televisions with ports that allow the transfer of images from mobile devices to the TV.

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