Blockbusters to be few at Las Vegas tech show
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LAS VEGAS: People attending the Consumer Electronics Show, starting here Monday, will encounter a crowded and noisy stage where technology companies from around the world unveil their latest wares.
They may well not see any of the big consumer electronics hits of 2008.
The convention, one of high tech's most important gatherings, has never been bigger. Roughly 140,000 attendees will be trudging through 1.85 million square feet, or 172,000 square meters, of exhibition space.
But despite its size, or perhaps because of it, the annual conference has become a challenging and sometimes ineffectual place to introduce new products.
The show, which started in 1967, was once a springboard for technology's biggest successes, like the VCR in 1970, the compact disc player in 1981 and the DVD in 1996.
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Now, electronics makers and industry analysts say the show has become so loud, sprawling and preoccupied with technical esoterica that for many companies, it is as much a place to get lost as to get discovered.
Part of the problem is that technology has wormed its way into so many products over the years - from toys to kitchen appliances - that it is hard to say exactly what an electronics trade show should be about.
"Everything has morphed into it," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch, who is skipping the show after attending for four years. "You've got a 150-inch plasma screen, and next to it some guy selling electronic toothbrushes."
Technology companies now frequently introduce their products elsewhere, in an effort to reach consumers more directly. The Apple iPhone, the Nintendo Wii and other recent must-haves were not unveiled at CES. One of the industry's biggest hits in 2007 was the Flip Video camcorder, an easy-to-use, pocket-sized device that sells for $120.
Executives from Pure Digital Technologies, which makes the camcorder, visited Las Vegas last year during CES but kept to their suite at the Wynn hotel, quietly briefing retailers on the device. The company introduced the camera in June with a television ad campaign, and stellar word of mouth landed it in the hands of an enthusiastic Oprah Winfrey on her show in October.
"Especially in the camcorder space, CES is about one-upping the competition with features - 'My hard drive is bigger than yours,' " said Jonathan Kaplan, chief executive of Pure Digital. "We would get lost in the noise at CES trying to talk to a consumer that is probably not even listening."
Various colors and models of the Flip Video were the five best-selling camcorders on Amazon.com during December.
CES is still unmatched in its sheer number of product introductions, which collectively represent billions of dollars of annual sales. Major vendors from around the world will show off new high-definition television sets, novel entertainment set-top boxes for living rooms, robots, electronic toys and an array of new Internet services. Some of those products may manage to rise above the noise and become a breakthrough consumer hit.
Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association, which runs CES, said sales of recent hit products pale in comparison to the overall revenue from broad categories like high-definition televisions, which are a big part of the CES scene.
But many of the products introduced here, rather than representing quantum leaps, are incremental enhancements or important technical changes that may not register immediately with consumers.
Mark Simons, vice president and general manager of the digital products division at Toshiba America Information Systems, said that his company's big CES announcement this year would be a "complete refresh" of its consumer notebook line for consumers. The laptops will now have HD DVD drives and faster processors.
That incremental approach is perhaps one reason that news from last year's CES was definitively drowned out by a much smaller gathering: Macworld in San Francisco, where Apple introduced the iPhone.
"One of the reasons Apple stole CES last year was that its message was simple and succinct," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "CES does not have a crystal-clear message. There's too much information and it looks like you have to get a Ph.D. to get these things to work."
Microsoft, one of the largest companies attending CES, has in the past used Bill Gates's introductory keynote speech at the show to make significant product introductions, like the Xbox game console in 2001.
But recently, Microsoft's biggest unveilings have not come at CES. The company presented the Zune music player in the fall of 2006, and introduced Surface, a touch-screen tabletop computer, last June at another industry conference.
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