Unfinished Business
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 1/5/2006
International CES opens today, and for those of you attending the show (and even for those of you who aren't) this annual event has made Las Vegas the world's technology vortex for the opening days of this, or any, new year.
The interest and demand for consumer electronics is evident in the projected 130,000 attendees expected to travel to the desert this week. Among CES attendees are top-of-the-line executives who keynote the event, such as Microsoft's Bill Gates, Sony's Sir Howard Stringer, Michael Dell of Dell, Verizon's Ivan Steinberg, Intel's Paul Otellini, Yahoo's Terry Semel, Kodak's Antonio Perez and an all-star retailer panel, moderated by CEA president/CEO Gary Shapiro, of Best Buy's Brad Anderson, RadioShack's Dave Edmondson, Circuit City's Alan McCollough and CompUSA's Larry Mondry. And Shapiro will go one-on-one with Federal Communications Commission's Kevin Martin, a rare public appearance for the relative-new FCC chairman. (For a complete list of speakers and schedules, visit www.cesweb.org.)
Along with top legislators, leaders from the broadcasting, broadband, cable, content, installation and satellite industries, will also be on hand to observe, network, lobby and kibitz with colleagues from the United States and around the world.
And as they visit CES there is a lot to kibitz about, a lot of unfinished business. Let's start with the HD optical disc format battle, which is shaping up to be a competition between IT companies (HD DVD) and Hollywood (Blu-ray) with CE suppliers being in the middle. How will consumers, and content providers, embrace the time-shifting capabilities of new HD Radio and satellite radio products? As for the technology and regulatory issues, I'm just scratching the surface. You could probably come up with another half-dozen candidates.
End of the Year Retail Changes
There is also a lot of unfinished business in January resulting from retail sales that occurred from Black Friday until the end of the year. Whether you call it Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, holiday season sales at retail for consumer electronics were strong, attracted more online customers and were less promotional than feared. And as part of that ongoing trend, the holiday season doesn't end on Dec. 25 or Jan. 1 at retail, due to the growing gift card phenomenon. (For more on holiday sales at retail, see Alan Wolf's report on p. 7.)
A retrospective of the year gone by is a media staple, even at TWICE with our retail year-end review in our Dec. 19 issue. To publish a report of this type by the end of the year, TWICE, Time, Newsweek or any publication you can name probably puts it to bed by mid-December. “What else could happen?” some editors say. In CE retailing, three major stories happened.
First off Circuit City's chairman/CEO Alan McCollough will step down as CEO on Feb. 28 and will not seek reelection to the company's board after his term expires in June. He will be succeeded as CEO by president Phil Schoonover on March 1. Schoonover takes the top job as buzz about the chain, and their most recent financials, are upbeat. (Coverage begins on p. 10.)
BrandSource and MARTA signed a “strategic alliance,” which seems like a good deal for both sides. In the process Ultimate Electronics' veteran Dave Workman comes on board and replaces Warren Mann, who led MARTA since the late 1990s, under whose leadership the smaller buying group enjoyed its best year ever in 2005. We welcome Dave back to retail and soon expect to see Warren back involved in the industry with another project. (See story on p. 12.)
And sadly Jay “Mr. Jay” Leibowitz, owner of the appliance store of the same name based in Levittown, N.Y. and an instrumental force behind the NECO Alliance, a part of Nationwide Marketing, passed away at 78. “Strength in numbers” was always his policy, and he was an icon in the major appliance business. TWICE, along with the rest of the industry, express our condolences to his family and many industry friends.
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