A New Way to Go Green?

Imagine taking home a new electronic product and not having to dispose of the mounds of Styrofoam and plastic bags that came wrapped around it in the box. HP has found a way to eliminate most of the conventional packaging by selling its new Pavillion dv6929 notebook computer in a padded messenger bag. HP used this idea to win a competition hosted by Wal-Mart to reduce environmental impact and in turn Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club provide the only locations where the notebook-and-bag combo can be purchased. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if portable DVD players, digital cameras, MP3 players, and cell phones followed this trend? Being able to buy the product you want with the carrying case you need to go with it and none of the annoying mess to go with it.

Network-Attached Storage Should Feature File Allocation, Searching, and Media Sharing in addition to Increased Capacity

Sales of NAS devices to reach 13 million by 2012

The rapid growth in digital content libraries will push worldwide sales of network-attached storage devices to nearly 13 million units by 2012, according to Parks Associates’ Home Servers and Consumer Storage: Analysis and Forecasts.

In targeting this broader market, companies should develop storage solutions that emphasize easier file allocation, searching, and media sharing, Shields said. Manufacturers and retailers must carefully select the features to market. Messages that emphasize content sharing have as much resonance with this new audience as do those that stress backup. Intuitive user interfaces and installation processes, allowing easy backup, file sharing, and new device connectivity, will help consumers discover these and other features and grow accustomed to networked storage. In this way, NAS devices will expand their role in the home into media servers.

Home Servers and Consumer Storage: Analysis and Forecasts defines several categories of consumer storage solutions – from online/network-hosted services to network-attached storage and home servers. It provides primary consumer research about recent and planned storage uses and purchases and includes worldwide forecasts for network-attached storage devices.

For the full press release, please visit: http://newsroom.parksassociates.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5089