CES And The Race Toward Oblivion

CES is best known for one thing beyond its place as the world’s largest display of new consumer electronic products. It is also the largest display of consumer products that will fail.  It is like an auto show filed with concept cars. Some may never make it to market.

Verizon may be the best example among large companies of a firm that has more products than the market can bear. The firm showed four new smartphones and several tablets. Some of the phones will work on the new Verizon 4G wireless network which will not be finished for well over a year. Verizon appears to want to spread its risk across  many devices. Most may fail to get consumer attention. Perhaps one or two will receive broad adoption. Verizon is large enough to live with its failures.

Samsung may hold the pole position among consumer electronics manufacturers when it comes to product releases at CES. It has new versions of its Galaxy tablet. Some have WiFi capacity. Some will work on 3G networks, and other on 4G infrastructure. Samsung is also releasing several smartphones. It has been late to the market even though it is the No.2 cellphone operation in the world.

The space for content providers at CES is also crowded. Hulu will announce partnerships with several hardware companies. So will Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX). It is not certain that people want to watch premium programs on small screens. That has not kept video content providers from assaults on the market.

CES has become a graveyard for new ideas and new products. That may mean the end of the early runs for small companies with only one or two products. Larger companies, however, will throw as many products at the wall as they can, and hope some of them will stick.

Douglas A. McIntyre