Philips Consumer Electronics, a division of Royal Philips Electronics today unveiled the Connected Planet, the strategic vision behind a vanguard portfolio of consumer products and technologies enabling people to access and enjoy digital content anywhere and anytime in the home and beyond.
In a move that builds off of its success and legacy in the home, Philips is combining a unique series of partnerships with the telecommunications industry, with a slate of new products designed to accelerate consumers’ access to the rich content and services promised by today’s broadband and wireless technologies. Under the umbrella of ‘Connected Planet’, Philips will further broaden its application of wireless, broadband and mobile enabling technologies to provide seamless accessibility to entertainment, information and services.
Based on open technical standards such as WiFi™ and UPnP, the Philips Streamium family of products that form the basis of this Connected Planet strategy, enable the wireless transmission of digital media content throughout PC and A/V environments.
“Connected Planet is really about freeing people from the existing constraints of technology that until recently they have had to accept. As we’ve seen broadband, wireless and digital media technologies grow in availability and functionality, we now have an opportunity to give consumers intuitive, spontaneous access to content,” said Gottfried Dutiné, CEO, Philips Consumer Electronics. “As a lifestyle and technology company, this is a strategic sweet spot for us. With our vision, product line and partnerships, Philips can lead consumers and the market into the new connected age.”
Another key element of the strategy involves a series of partnerships with the world’s leading telecommunications providers, including Deutsche Telekom (T-Com), British Telecom, Belgacom and Telecom Italia announced this week, as well as previously existing partnerships with KPN and Telefonica. These partnerships, combined with Philips’ core competency strengths in display, storage, connectivity and digital media processing, give the company a leading position in the race to own the 24/7 consumer lifestyle that is rapidly evolving around the world.
Guiding Philosophy for Product Creation
As both a guiding philosophy for product creation and a tool to help introduce consumers to technologies such as the WiFi wireless standards, Connected Planet will embrace a wide range of Philips products being launched in the years ahead.
Philips will be applying its Connected Planet strategy across the broad canon of the company’s total consumer electronics activities. End products like Streamium entertainment systems, the Nexperia™ multimedia processing platform and components based on Bluetooth® and Philips’ own Near-Field Communications wireless connectivity solution will all be embraced by the Connected Planet direction.
Philips will commence its rollout of Connected Planet products with a broad range of products on sale by the start of 2004, including Streamium wireless Internet audio-video entertainment systems, the iPronto advanced remote control, a family of wireless connectivity accessories, followed by a range of wireless multimedia link devices, based on the new 802.11g (WiFi) standard, which enables content stored on a PC to be streamed wirelessly to audio or TV equipment.
Making their worldwide debuts at IFA are two members of the Philips Streamium family: the MC-6000i home entertainment system and the SL400i Wireless Multimedia Receiver. Both devices allow consumers to wirelessly stream video, audio and multimedia content directly from the Internet, or from their PC, to enjoy in the living room or wherever in the house they choose.
