ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

Vendor News

The Mystery of the Corporate 5 Note Tune

04 March 2008 Bob Snyder Vendor News

Remember the 3 seconds music tone of INTEL that chirped so famously on TV ads across the world? It played once every 5 minutes somewhere in the world.

Now Cisco's selected a new musical logo. Cisco was quite chuffed as apparently it takes 18 months to compose an adequate five-note tune and Cisco completed this in six months. Whew!
Cisco is in a touchy-feely corporate mood these days, although it fires execs who can’t do touchy-feely without blinking. Which would indicate a source of Continue reading...

LG Philips Name Change

25 February 2008 Bob Snyder Vendor News

LG Philips LCD will become LG Display after the company’s GM on February 29.

The name will reflect Philips’ equity stake reduction and LG’s intent to pursue display technologies beyond LCD. Like the world’s highest res 14.3-inch flexible color E-paper they displayed at CES 2008. The size of an A4 sheet of paper, it has a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, displaying 16.7 million colors. Less than 300 micrometers thin (and with the use of metal foil and plastic --rather than Continue reading...

The End of the DVD Wars

25 February 2008 Bob Snyder Vendor News

Toshiba will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD. This makes Blu-ray (backed by Sony & Panasonic and five major Hollywood movie studios) the winner in the battle over high-def. The HD DVD camp included Microsoft, Intel Corp and NEC Corp. So you could also conclude the consumer electronics boys outmaneuvered the IT guys in this war.

Toshiba says the pivotal point was when Warner Bros. decided to release movie only in Blu-ray, so content was a key factor. Retail played its role: WalMart’s Continue reading...

Kyocera set to buy Sanyo unit

12 February 2008 administrator Vendor News

Kyocera will buy Sanyo's loss-making mobile phone unit for 378m euros. After 3 years of losses (and coaching by Goldman Sachs), Sanyo hopes to rebuild focusing on solar cells and Kyocera wants to create the world's 6^th biggest handset maker.

Read the deal.

Lenovo Consumer Push In Europe in Doubt

14 January 2008 Bob Snyder Vendor News

Lenovo says it may scale back its launch into the European consumer market next year, if the credit crisis and economic slowdown worsen. Milko Van Duijl, president of Lenovo's EMEA division, says the company will take a final decision in this first quarter.

Lenovo may decide to concentrate more on launching in emerging markets, such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and delay entry into more mature markets in Western Europe. "I am a believer in focus - doing fewer things but Continue reading...

Dell signs DSGi

14 January 2008 Bob Snyder Vendor News

The No.2 PC maker moves farther from its direct-to-consumer sales model with a new agreement to sell its PCs through DSGi's European network of store brands including Currys.digital, Currys, Electro World, Elkjop, PC City and PC World.

The DSGi-Dell agreement covers 1300 stores in 12 European markets: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.