Strategy in TECH...
New research conducted by NPR and Edison Research has revealed what is likely the key motivation for Amazon and Google to aggressively attack the mass market by offering attractive smart speaker products at ever-decreasing prices – they are a Trojan horse. The data also shows the remarkably rapid adoption of the technology in just a couple of short years.
At CEDIA 2017 CEDIA and Home Advisors partnered to present the results of a recent member survey on the Smart Home market that the two parties collaborated on recently. The results were interesting although not particularly surprising or earth shattering.
For years now, the single greatest driving force behind the entire consumer electronics industry has been the vibrant, forceful growth in sales of television sets. Now, in a surprising new report, we learn that American consumers are beginning to wean themselves off of TVs. What that means for integrators, or for the industry, remains to be seen.
Strata-gee’s founder and editor Ted Green was a guest panelist on this week’s episode of AVNation’s ResiWeek podcast. ResiWeek is specifically targeted at the residential audio visual integration industry and weekly convenes a panel to discuss the top stories of the day, which in this episode, included a post from Strata-gee on Amazon hiring their own Geek Squad.
Recode is reporting that Amazon is testing an installation service for smart home products in several key test markets – in direct competition with Best Buy’s Geek Squad. While these two giants battle over the rights to install smart home solutions into the home, where does this leave the independent integrator?
Lennar Corporation, one of the nation’s largest builders of homes, announced today the world’s first Wi-Fi Certified home designs featuring home automation built-in and voice control by Amazon Alexa. The company says this new program is part of its Everything’s Included approach to home building.
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announced this week that at its upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2018 in Las Vegas, there will be a new area of focus on Smart City technologies. The group plans both a dedicated display space featuring the technologies of Smart Cities, as well as a full schedule of related conference programming.
Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai is feeling pretty good these days. After an incredibly tough turnaround period where many questioned his plan, Hirai said this week that the company expects to book an operating profit of ¥500 billion ($4.5 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 2018, its highest operating profit in 20-years according to a report by the Nikkei. But the CEO admits that, as good as this news is, the company is still short of a full turnaround.
What’s needed for a complete turnaround of Sony’s business? Innovation…
One of the greatest challenges for those of us in the residential technology business is the surprising lack of real hard data on the market. Now, you can do something about that. By participating in the 2017 CEDIA Size and Scope of the Residential Electronic Systems Market survey, you help the organization collect the data that will give you a better understanding of your market…a true win-win.
New research results released this week on the smart home market were wildly bullish on the recent impressive growth of the segment, as well as the continuing prospects for growth in the future. The survey, sponsored by PlumChoice, Inc (a technical services provider for IoT and cloud brands) and the Z-Wave Alliance (a consortium of companies promoting Z-Wave wireless technologies), offers a deeper view of the market’s momentum with some surprisingly positive results.
