Why the mobile web is gathering steam, and apps are looking shaky:
The most-cynical (and therefore, the most snarkily delightful) takeaway from this week’s OMMA Mobile conference was the revelation that: “Every week, you’ve got these device guys traipsing up and down the 101, meeting with developers. They reach into the black box and pull out … yet another tablet device. Hooray! How inventive! By now everyone just rubs their eyes and says, ‘Hope you’ve got a good browser in that thing.’ ”
Comes now the news that Technicolor – yes, the company recognized as being the name you see on the screen during the movie credits, when you’re trying to snatch that last handful of popcorn before your date gives you The Look – has come out with its own tablet device:
When did these guys decide to start crashing the consumer market? Is there a company left that doesn't feel compelled to try to cram some new 7-12 inch touchscreen widget at us? Please? I'll buy your dumpster scraps if you'll just please not spam us with more iterations on this theme...
The product has been primarily defined to: consume online and home audio and video, access the Web and its applications, and interact with other equipment. With the tablet’s Android operating system, service providers can also leverage a fast-growing community of application developers to enrich their applications set.
This is the tablet device equivalent of Godwin’s Law. That is, when this point has been reached, we have to declare the contest over, null and void, and the last person to toss out a chuckleheaded comment is universally declared the loser, and everyone moves on. Because come on. Really? I know that the past decade has probably not been all that kind to Technicolor, a company that came into existence when movies went color back in 1939, and that is grasping at 3D straws to try to find a business model in the digital age. But to inflict yet another tablet device on us all, as we’re still trying to figure out what we’re doing with the iPad, is really just piling on at this point.
Mind you, I’m not bagging on Technicolor for trying something to extend its business. But to try to put out something into this space, when everyone else has pretty much already cranked out their entries, smacks of groupthink, unoriginality and a deep & cynical misunderestimating of the consumer electronics market. It’s like seeing that the Beatles & the Stones were hitting it big in the U.S., and inflicting The Monkees (aka “The Prefab Four”) on our cultural landscape to make a quick buck. “Ah, all the kids, they’re into these mobile whatzits. Slap one together and put it out there! They’re stupid – they’ll buy anything.”
If this comes with its own iteration of the App Store, I may go postal. Just sayin’.
Videos and deeper introspection into the Meaning of Mobile to come. Stay tuned…
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Technicolor has devolved into merely a brand position for Thomson SA. Thomson SA purchased Technicolor in 2000. The “Portable Media Center” is manufactured by Thompson Consumer Electronics. I have found the same tablet with Thomson and Technicolor branding. Thomson also has branding rights for GE, RCA and Alcatel for consumer electronics.
It is reminiscent of Digital Equipment Corporation and Panasonic trying to enter the personal computer market in 1988 by reselling Tandy computers under their own brands.
I don’t believe that the tablet market is near saturation. All this shows is that for big brands that have lost the ability to innovate, they can always imitate.