Throughout this year, technology companies should focus on simplifying consumer electronics product interfaces. The board is from Deloitte Consulting and consists of a study where the consultant points out the main trends for 2007.
In the document, Deloitte notes that about half of the consumer electronics products returned to retailers are not damaged, users have been confused by their complexity.
According to the figures presented in the study, consumers’ tolerance is limited to 20 minutes after which they give up trying to interact with the equipment and consider it to be defective, thus resorting to repair shops.
Reducing this type of situation involves investing in reducing the complexity of the equipment and making it more user friendly, because there is a wide spectrum of consumer electronics products that tend to be increasingly used in daily life.
The products in the area of ​​digital imaging are an example of this and that is why the area also deserves a recommendation from Deloitte that advises a greater commitment to the robustness, quality and longevity of digital storage and a sustained fall in prices that guarantees the success of this area in strong growth .
It is also from the success of the digital image that one emerges, or at least gets worse, one of the problems in the IT sector that has to do with the capacity of the technology associated with lithium ions, used for the manufacture of batteries. In the consultant’s opinion, this will lead companies in the sector to seek alternative energy solutions.
In the field of technology, emphasis is also placed on the increasingly urgent replacement of password, for biometric security systems that use the physical characteristics of the individual, instead of resorting to external systems that imply data memorization.
Product segmentation is the key word in telecommunications
In telecommunications, the study points to the need for a growing segmentation of products. Quality tends to be increasingly valued by the customer who is willing to pay for it, which will force companies to focus their products better.
File traffic will be an increasingly firm bet for telecommunications operators, which according to Deloitte should not focus their efforts on options that overload the network too much. Especially because it shows the experience, which are simple applications such as SMS or the ringtones that have won the users’ sympathy.
Even so, the authors of the study that it will be in high capacity applications that the operators’ bets will remain as the IPTV or the downloads music and videos. This although Deloitte considers it worthwhile to be aware of business opportunities in the area of kilobyte applications, like the email, or the instant messaging.
For mobile television, Deloitte’s forecasts are optimistic but the consultant argues that throughout this year its impact on the market will still be weak.
In the fixed voice, the loss of customers is expected to continue and operators are advised to find «ways to face the growing competition from WiFi networks, to review the terms of the licenses, taking into account the population and territorial coverage».
Still with regard to the Internet, the study recommends that it be done more and more from small equipment such as portable e-mail receivers or portable media readers.
The growing access to broadband, everywhere, is one of the main trends mentioned in the document that warns of the possibility that existing traffic may even exceed the physical structure of the network. «The available capacity will be threatened by the growing number of Internet users and by the exponential increase in the transmission of video files», warns the consultant.
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