CES will be evolutionary not revolutionary

Michael Gartenberg | January 05, 2007, 09:28 AM

I've been doing the CES thing for a while and more and more, it's looking like this show is going to be about evolution and not revolution. Don't look for lots of new stuff to be introduced, look instead for products that are reaching maturation to show how they can differ from other products by allowing for better interaction, managment, integration, form factor or price. Over the last few years we've seen new technologies and products based on them make the splash at CES. This year, as thos products move from enthusiast to mainstream, it's going to be about diffentiation not necessarily innovation.

One core theme will be the real emergence of the digital consumer. Not just the digital home but the digital consumer. As more and more consumers are putting their lives on line, rely more on mobile technology to keep in touch and are creating huge collections of content that is important to them, look for solutions to help them integrate these devices to work better together and allow consumers to better manage their devices and content.

This is the right time for this stuff. Right now consumers are expected to deal with the same information technology tasks that business users deal with every day. Except, they're expected to do them without the benefit of an IT department. Let's face it, Dad doesn't want to be CIO, Mom doesn't want to run the help desk and the kids don't want to do technical support.