Consumer-Tech Firms Jockey for Position
Sony's Blu-ray technology at the International Consumer Electronics Show. Sony expects to introduce the next-generation DVD players this summer.
(By Steve Marcus -- Reuters)
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Friday, January 6, 2006
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 5 -- The tech industry thinks it has figured out what people want: access to all their digital information and entertainment from anywhere -- and preferably in a high-definition format. The only problem is that the industry doesn't agree yet on how to accomplish that.
Battle lines for competing strategies hardened Thursday at the International Consumer Electronics Show among giants such as Sony, Intel, Toshiba and Microsoft.
A major fight has started to heat up between electronics makers trying to come up with the next version of the DVD player to take advantage of the movement toward high-definition television in homes. Both next-generation DVD formats -- Blu-ray and HD-DVD -- look a little sharper, if not wildly sharper, than DVDs, and each side has its own roster of consumer electronics makers and movies studios.
Though neither standard has arrived in retail stores, Toshiba Corp. and HD-DVD took an early lead over Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray by launching the trade show with an announcement that two HD-DVD players will hit the market in March, priced at $800 and $400. About 30 movies are scheduled to come out in that format then, including "Batman Returns" and "Troy," said Richard Guida, a Toshiba spokesman. About 200 more titles are on the way.
Toshiba says the standard it has backed is better because it will be easier for companies to manufacture HD-DVDs with existing equipment.
"All they have to do is retool the current machinery," Guida said.
Toshiba also contends that consumers will like the standard because they will be able to play their old DVDs in new HD-DVD machines.
Although that isn't the case with Blu-ray players, Sony says its new format will be better down the line because it will have more and better functions. Sony says the first Blu-ray players will arrive this summer.
The stakes are huge. DVDs represent a multibillion-dollar portion of the consumer electronics industry, which is continuing to grow at a healthy clip. The Consumer Electronics Association, which hosts CES, announced yesterday that the overall industry had revenue of $125.9 billion last year, up 11 percent from 2004.
Chipmaker Intel Corp. is trying to grab a bigger piece of that market by tapping into the convergence of TVs and computers with a new chip and hardware system called Viiv, which it is demonstrating this week in devices that will go on sale this year.
Mobile devices are another major front in the battle to consolidate digital media experiences. And just as giant Sony is facing strong competition in the DVD field, Microsoft Corp. is struggling to transfer its desktop dominance to a wireless world.
On Thursday, handheld maker Palm Inc. and Verizon Wireless Inc. rolled out a new version of the Treo, the first Palm "smart phone" that uses Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. It also takes advantage of a new high-speed Verizon network called EV-DO.
