Parks Associates is supporting the Broadband World Forum Asia 2011

Parks Associates is supporting the Broadband World Forum Asia 2011, taking place May 10-11, 2011 in Malaysia.

Back by popular demand, the 6th Broadband World Forum Asia brings together 2500+ attendees from across the region making it the most respected event in the Asian telecoms calendar. Featuring an all new operator case study led programme, the event will be packed with deployment experiences from across the region and includes 150+ visionary speakers, 50+ sponsors and exhibitors and 50+ operator presentations and case studies. Furthermore, Broadband World Forum Asia will be co-located with the 7th Annual ip&tv Forum Asia, the region’s leading event connected IP and hybrid TV, making it the perfect place to network, meet customers and suppliers face to face and learn about new industry developments from some of the top companies in Asia.

For your free exhibition pass or early booking conference discount please go to www.broadbandworldforum.com/asia and quote VIP Code: BBWFA11ITD

For more information, please click here.

Parks Associates is Supporting the ATA 2011 Meeting

Parks Associates is supporting the ATA 2011 Annual Meeting. The meeting will take place May 1-3, 2011 in Dallas, TX.

The ATA Annual Meeting is the premier educational and networking event for individuals involved in health technology and remote medical services. ATA 2011 is a forum for reaching the world's largest gathering of telehealth professionals--over 3500 researchers, clinicians, administrators, technicians and entrepreneurs, all focused on the development of telemedicine. It is the single most important telehealth event of the year!

For more information, please click here.

President of Parks Associates Will be Speaking at the IPTV World Forum 2011

IP&TV World Forum will take place on March 22-24, 2011 in Olympia, London.

Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates will be chairing the "Networked Home" part of the Network Optimization track on Tuesday, March 22nd at 11:30 AM.

Now in its 7th year, the IP&TV World Forum continues to evolve with the industry to reflect the central issues of connected TV solutions and hybrid TV business models. This year IP&TV World Forum brings a greater emphasis on TV business strategies, with a new track focusing content acquisition and management, pricing and advertising. The deployment of IP in the cable market and the rise of connected TV is again core coverage, whilst optimizing the home and network for IP video is covered in depth in a specific track.

For more information, please click here.

Director of Research at Parks Associates to Speak at the Verizon Enhanced Communities Executive Summit

The Verizon Enhanced Communities Executive Summit will take place March 16-18, 2011 in Chantilly Virginia.

John Barrett, Director of Research, Parks Associates is presenting new consumer research during the session “FiOS Forward” on Thursday, March 17 at 9:30 AM ET.

Join us at this event as the event highlights how Verizon’s $24 billion fiber optic network, Verizon FiOS, can transform your properties and help meet your goals of higher occupancy, improved retention, increased property value and customer satisfaction.

For more information, please click here.

What "Cloud Computing" Could Mean to Consumers

"Cloud" is such a buzz phrase today that it's easy to be overwhelmed by what's really happening on the consumer side. Parks Associates specifies the following requirements for a product or solution to fit in the "personal cloud" category:

• For hardware, appliance, and online solutions, the ability to upload all desired content to remote storage, not just a single-purpose site

• The ability to "push" - or share - only specific folders or files with friends or family

• Remote and ubiquitous access to content from multiple IP-connected devices

• For premium content service cloud offerings, the ability to offer multiple formats or work with hardware with the necessary transcoding capabilities to play content on a wide number of devices

To further complicate this market, there are several different types of consumer cloud solutions...

To read more about the What "Cloud Computing" Could Mean to Consumers, subscribe to Parks Associates' Parks Points.

Click here to subscribe to other Parks Associates complimentary newsletters.

Trends We Are Expecting to See in 2011 and Beyond

Connected products:

One popular theme among the products displayed at CES was the ability to be connected, whether to the Internet, other products, or a consumer’s smartphone. There were numerous products at CES that were designed to be part of a network, with the goal of delivering more useful, efficient, and compelling customer experiences. The television is one product that’s undergoing a major transformation, with virtually every TV manufacturer at CES displaying their web-connected televisions. These products have the ability to stream content and access applications such as Netflix, Pandora, and games.

The living room isn’t the only room that’s becoming more connected; the kitchen is also being overhauled to be “smarter” for consumers. Appliances in the near future will be able to take stock of the food in the kitchen, present meal suggestions based on those ingredients, and even guide consumers through the cooking process.

A new meaning of “green”:

Eco-friendly certainly isn’t a new product trend, but manufacturers are shifting the meaning of “green” to focus more on energy-efficiency than in the past.

Appliance manufacturers such as LG and Samsung are offering solutions that help consumers determine the best time to run their appliances. Panasonic’s version goes so far as to include solar panels, home fuel cells, an electric vehicle (EV) charging station and energy storage units.

Continued focus on digital health:

The digital health movement continues to move forward with products that marry cutting edge technologies with the growing need for medical devices that help consumers manage their health more actively and dynamically. Medical devices are becoming more and more like consumer electronics devices, with many wearable, mobile medical products already or soon to be on the market. Examples include smartphones that double as heart rate monitors and watches that have GPS locators to help keep track of elderly loved ones. There were also numerous therapeutic and diagnostic devices, medication monitoring equipment, and robotic prosthetics on display.

-- Content submitted by Home Toys

Parks Associates Analyst Speaking at CableLabs Winter Conference

Bill Ablondi, Director of Home Systems Research, Parks Associates is presenting during the session "Competitive Assessments" on Tuesday March 1, 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM ET.

The CableLabs Winter Conference will be taking place from February 28th to March 2nd in Atlanta, Georgia.

Twice a year, during the summer and the winter, CableLabs hosts members-only conferences which provide attendees with current information about changing technology and supporting business and strategy objectives, as well as providing a forum for them to interact with each other. Attendees receive information from cable experts, including the CTOs and CEOs of the industry's leading operators.

For the event website, please click here.

Parks Associates CEO Presenting at CABA's Digital Home Forum

CABA Digital Home Forum will take place in St. Paul, Minnesota on February 17, 2011.

Tricia Parks, CEO, Parks Associates will be presenting on the session, Connected Home Roadmap on Thursday, February 17 from 10 AM - 10:45 AM.

CABA’s Digital Home Forum, hosted by 3M, will bring together leading companies dealing with integration of consumer electronics and other cutting-edge technology throughout the home. Attend the forum to learn about current trends in the digital and connected home from a wide range of companies working in this space and explore future research opportunities.

Members of CABA’s Connected Home Council will share their research and insights, along with details about their current activities. Forum participants will be encouraged to openly discuss the research strategies as they relate to the industry and their respective organizations.

For more information, please click here.

Parks Associates is supporting Mobile World Congress

Parks Associates is supporting the Mobile World Congress on February 14-15 2011 in Barcelona.

The mobile ecosystem is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of transformation. As business models adapt, new verticals and players emerge. Technology evolves, perceptions shift, and lives are improved.

At the centre of this transformation is GSMA Mobile World Congress, the must-attend annual gathering of the mobile industry. Our participants - 50,000 senior mobile leaders from 200 countries - enable, accelerate and direct this transformation, leading us into the Mobile Future.

For the event website, please click here.

Connected TV market to hit 76% by 2015

While their presence was more subtle than 3DTV and not as in-your-face as non-iPad tablets, connected consumer electronics devices were more diverse and pervasive at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with every major manufacturer showing off new electronics that have their own built-in apps and can access content from the Internet.

With devices that incorporated complete Internet browsers, HDTVs that offered hundreds of applications, even set-tops that turned current HDTVs into a completely connected device, the theme of combining the home theater set-up with a PC experience was everywhere.

“We’re starting to see some real trends develop here,” said Kurt Scherf, VP and principal analyst with Parks Associates. “And connected TV is not just about online video.”

Consider: In 2010 less than a quarter of all HDTVs were connected, according to research firm Parks Associates. By 2015, Parks believes that number will hit 76% (more than 150 million units). The firm projects that by 2015 there will be more than $8 billion worth of transactions on connected consumer electronics devices, from e-purchases to gaming to VOD and streaming.

For the complete article, please click here.

Companies have new focus on managing consumers’ electricity usage

Today there are 1.9 million homes with energy management networks. We are entering a period of pervasive growth. … We estimate there will be 16.2 million by 2015.

Parks Associates hosted the Smart Energy Summit in Austin last week. It focused on ways to find customers for such services. The three-day affair showed enthusiasm is high among corporations and entrepreneurs, who sense an emerging market. Parks Associates' Director of Research, Bill Ablondi said there were about 75 companies in the market last year, but now there are as many as 250, including such big names as GE, Intel, Verizon and AT&T.

Consumers, however, remain largely in the dark about the possibilities. Smart grid technologies promise to provide big gains in efficiency for electricity generators, transmitters and consumers. That means cost savings, less pollution and fewer power plants.

Integrating information technology into the electric power grid should also make it far easier to connect renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

The technologies should also make it possible to manage a fleet of electric cars so that they can be fueled without putting crushing demands on the system and double as available storage devices for power when parked.

But with electricity prices flat or falling (they were down 11.5 percent last year in Dallas), consumers are not motivated to jump in.

Oncor and other Texas electricity transmission companies have installed more than 3 million smart meters across the state under a mandate from the state government. The meters are providing an ocean of data to the utilities about electricity consumption, but consumers have seen little advantage.

Reliant and TXU Energy can also use the smart meter data to send e-mail alerts to consumers when their electricity usage starts to balloon, along with recommendations on ways to conserve.

A thermostat equipped with wireless radio communications, however, can be configured remotely. TXU Energy offers thermostats that can be programmed from a smart phone.

Parks Associates said energy management systems independent of smart meters would outsell the utility plans for several more years. He estimated that wireless thermostats would grow into a $1.1 billion market by 2015, and that remote-control lighting systems would equal that market.

Speaker after speaker at the conference said the key to this market, however, is raising consumer awareness of the cost savings such systems can bring — without sacrificing comfort or demanding a lot of skill.

To view the full Dallas Morning News Article, click here.

Parks Associates is supporting DECT World & CAT-iq Conference

Parks Associates is supporting the DECT World & CAT-iq Conference on January 26th-27th in Amsterdam.

Bringing together the industry, the summit will analyse developments over the past 12 months and discuss the future of DECT and CAT-iq. With examples of DECT products live in the market and new technologies which are set to drive DECT use in both residential and enterprise markets, this year's conference is not to be missed.

For more information, please click here.

Analyst Roundtable What's Hot in 2011 WEBCAST - JAN 20

What will be the defining consumer and technology trends of 2011?

Join Parks Associates on Thursday, January 20th at 1 pm CENTRAL for the webcast, Analyst Roundtable What's Hot in 2011, and learn more about CES 2011 announcements and notable trends in the digital home and CE industries. This event provides primary consumer data and trending, predictions, and forecasts for a number of product and service categories.

Parks Associates research finds:
-- U.S. sales of smartphones will reach nearly 60 million in 2011
-- Internet tablets will reach more than 13 million in 2011
-- By 2014, annual worldwide shipments of Internet-connectable CE will reach close to 300 million units
-- 80% of flat-panel TVs sold in the U.S. and Western Europe will have 3D capabilities

***Register for this complimentary event:
http://parksassociates.com/events/webcasts/registration/webcast_registration-free.htm

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
JAN 20 | 1 PM - 2:15 PM CENTRAL
Analyst Roundtable What's Hot in 2011 WEBCAST
***Presenters include: The Parks Associates Analyst Team ***

This webcast features analysis and forecasts from Parks Associates examining:
-- Connected consumer electronics
-- 3D TV
-- Gaming
-- Mobile and portable devices, with a focus on smartphones, tablet computers, and e-readers
-- Broadband and digital television services
-- Advanced advertising
-- Digital home technical support services
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We look forward to you joining us for this Webcast!

Parks Associates is supporting The Gamification Summit

Parks Associates is supporting The Gamification Summit on January 20-21 in San Francisco.

The Gamification Summit brings together top thought leaders in game mechanics and engagement science for the first time. Hear what works and what doesn’t in this dynamic and fast-moving field through case studies, workshops, keynotes and panels delivered by experts such as Gabe Zichermann (author, Game-Based Marketing), Amy Jo Kim (gamification guru) and Jane McGonigal (TED fellow, author debuting her new book) and network with other leaders in the space. Attend Gamification Summit 2011 and learn how game mechanics and the new science of engagement are rewriting the rules of brand marketing, product design and customer acquisition.

For more information, please click here.