ABI Research Advises Diversity in Consumer Electronics Vendor Strategies.OYSTER BAY Oyster Bay, uninc. area (1990 pop. 6,687) of the Town of Oyster Bay, Nassau co., SE N.Y., on N Long Island, on Long Island Sound; settled 1653. It is chiefly residential. , N.Y. -- Success in consumer electronics today requires not one strategy, but a whole arsenal, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. market intelligence firm ABI Abi (ā`bī) [short for Abijah], in the Bible, King Hezekiah's mother. (Application Binary Interface) A specification for a specific hardware platform combined with the operating system. Research. "The consumer electronics industry has changed dramatically since the 1990s," says director of residential entertainment technologies Vamsi Sistla. "Consumers' feelings about purchasing based on cost have changed. The 'cool factor' is more important than ever. Vendors are trying to reinvent their strategies based on these new market conditions as well as buying sentiments." For example Sony, the innovative giant, still has successful product lines, but it has struggled lately to build similar success across all its platforms, where inexpensive mass-produced brands -- Arcos, Apex, CyberHome and others -- are beating them on price. Neither their portable MP3 player A digital music player that supports the MP3 format, which was the audio format that started a revolution in online music downloads and distribution. All portable music players, the iPod being the most popular, support MP3 along with one or more other audio formats. nor their RoomLink home networking product did well. Similar problems beset most of the large, established brands. What can they do? One strategy is to launch products to build a mass market and then worry about revenue generation. Sony's new portable PlayStation comes with proprietary UMD (Universal Media Disc) The optical disc used in Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP). Officially the ECMA-365 standard, a UMD is a read-only medium for games and movies. Video is encoded in H.264, and audio is encoded in ATRAC3plus. See PlayStation. discs. The PSP (PlayStation Portable) See PlayStation. has a low list price compared to other portables, and Sony hopes to profit from packaged media sales. It has licensed the movie and music formats (but not games) to third parties, with an eye to generating ongoing royalties and licensing fees. The point, says Sistla, is that strategies must depend upon a company's particular situation, the market dynamics, and the immediate competition and near-term changes in the vendor landscape. There is no one magic formula. To address such complex questions, ABI Research has launched a completely restructured Residential Entertainment Research Service, a comprehensive suite of subscription products containing a number of annual research reports, quarterly "market updates" (one of which has just been released), a user-searchable forecast database, four special reports examining developments in Asia, and two Vendor Matrices. Subscribers also receive analyst support time and ABI Research's Analyst Insights. Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , ABI Research maintains global operations Global Operations is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Barking Dog Studios and published by both Crave Entertainment and Electronic Arts. It was released in March of 2002, following its public multiplayer beta version which contained only the Quebec map. that support annual research programs, quarterly intelligence services and market reports in wireless, automotive, semiconductors, broadband, and energy. Their market research products can be found on the Web at www.abiresearch.com, or by calling 516.624.2500. |
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