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RSS feedsAs PCs become more distinctive in the years ahead, so will the peripheral products that are attached to them. The 'lifestyle' product is here to stay, and this is not only good news for the retail sector. The design and style of a product will be just as important in the office environment.
But retailers and resellers will have to be in tune with product trends to exploit this opportunity. Product development continues to accelerate and it will be very important to move fast and respond to the latest fashions in peripheral products.
Reflecting the need to watch the market more closely, Nick Amer was recently appointed to the newly-created position of general manager of new business development at Computer 2000 (C2000).
Amer's remit is to find new products and markets for the distributor's resellers. "The pace of the market is quickening and it is vital that we keep our eyes on the ball so that we are swift to recognise and exploit the most exciting opportunities," he said. "At C2000, our aim is to always stay one step ahead of developments - to look to the future and at how we can help resellers enter these new markets."
Wireless application protocol (Wap) and UMTS communications will drive the development of hand-held internet and email devices, while Bluetooth and other Wap products will create a whole new market for core devices as well as for peripherals. Webcams and internet-based videoconferencing will become more significant and usable, taking the plug out of plug-and-play and opening up the market.
A view into the future
Alex Meir, assistant product manager at Toshiba, said that the digital camera market is no longer a niche sector. The vendor predicts this year's sales could reach 450,000 units - up 70 per cent on last year's figures - and that the total value of the market could climb to £145m.
"Digital cameras are rapidly becoming affordable, mass-market products, presenting vendors and resellers with an opportunity on which to capitalise," he said.
Amer agreed and said that the digital camera market will continue to be split into two areas: one for cheap but highly-specified products for the general consumer, and the other for high-end products aimed at the professional photographer.
Several factors are influencing the digital market now, said Meir. The first is image resolution, which is measured in mega-pixels. The accepted entry-level resolution is now about one mega-pixel, but sales of cameras with higher resolutions - from 1.5 mega-pixels up - are expected to achieve the most market growth this year.
The second factor affecting the digital camera market is zoom capability. Last year, 62 per cent of digital still cameras sold in the UK had a zoom capability. These devices accounted for 75 per cent of turnover generated by UK digital still camera sales. Sales of cameras with optical zoom only are in decline, while those with digital zoom only are increasing. But the really dramatic increase is in sales of cameras offering both. This trend looks set to continue, especially as cameras with higher specifications become more affordable.
We will also see more functionality built into the camera and the release of a series of multifunctional devices, said Amer. "We are likely to see MP3 players built in for no additional cost. We might even have disposable digital cameras or pay-as-you-print products," he said.
Amer claims that the ability to print digital images to the same quality you would get in a photo booth today will become the norm, driven by ease of printing. We are also likely to see digital cameras being used as add-ons to personal organisers, such as the Kodak PalmPix for the 3Com Palm III or Palm V. C2000 is already bundling these products together.
Meir said additional features are becoming important. "Many consumers are finding themselves faced with a choice between a number of cameras with similar specifications in terms of image quality and zoom capability," he said. "Those offering additional features such as video capture and multi-shot mode, make it easier for retailers to close the sale. In fact, consumers can often be persuaded to pay a premium for added functionality, boosting retailers' profit margins."
New feature-rich products are already swarming into the market. Toshiba has just launched its first triple mega-pixel camera - the PDR-M70 - which has a 3.37 mega-pixel CCD and a top-quality Canon lens.
In addition to superb image quality, the PDR-M70 can capture up to five minutes of video footage, complete with sound, on the 16Mb SmartMedia card supplied, and can also be used as a standalone digital voice recorder with a capacity of up to 65 minutes.
This makes it useful not only for digital imaging and for IT enthusiasts, but also for the lucrative business travel market because it allows people to store audio as well as visual records in a format that can be instantly emailed to colleagues around the world. The PDR-M70 will be available this month.
In July, Toshiba will add the PDR-M60, a 2.3 mega-pixel camera with both optical and digital zoom and high-speed USB download, aimed at the high end of the mass market.
View to a killing
In technology terms, much of what applies to digital cameras also applies to webcams, including their zoom and image quality. Webcams are almost always going to double up as fixed digital cameras, but for video streaming they must be permanently connected to the machine.
The webcam is one of the current boom markets and the technology will improve while the price comes down, opening up this market even more. With prices already down to the £100 mark and cameras making good use of USB technology, USB 2.0 is certain to find its way into webcams within the year, improving performance dramatically.
Even cheap examples already have fairly advanced features, such as low-light adjustment for dull conditions, and are easily moved between machines because of USB's plug-and-play capability.
However, webcams are limited by the quality of internet transmission and speed. Compression techniques will help to improve this but we may have to wait for the arrival of IPv6 to significantly move development forward again.
Bluetooth will also be a significant development for webcams because it will remove the need for cables to be run from the camera to the system board. At present, this limits the flexibility of the camera's position to the length of a cable.
Projectors are a massive growth area in the peripherals market. Amer said that as well as permeating the business world, projectors are now becoming items for personal use. He claimed that C2000 is now selling one projector for every 16 notebooks and Tech Data, its US parent company, sells one projector for every four notebooks. Cost has dropped considerably while specifications have increased. US-based research firm Pacific Media Associates predicted that projector sales will jump from 517,099 units in 1998 to 925,700 units in 2001.
Weight is still a big factor for portability, said Amer. "Chip technology advances have resulted in a new generation of lightweight projectors that can be sold as part of a mobile solution. As they continue to evolve into portable sales tools, we're finding that they are a great add-on to laptop sales."
Another key development in projectors will be networking capability. This will turn the projector into a 'digital conference hub'. Presenters who use a network projector will be able to send print commands to a network printer directly from the projector, search and retrieve certain files from the corporate network and browse the internet.
Scanners are also becoming increasingly popular in business and among consumers. Kevin Lamb, sales and marketing manager at scanner manufacturer Microtek, believed that the development of plug-and-play interfaces, especially USB and Bluetooth, will be extremely important in the development of peripherals over the next two years.
USB has already become the standard entry-level interface for scanners, and USB 2.0 will soon be widely available and may even make SCSI redundant. Running at 480Mbps - about the same speed as Firewire - USB 2.0 is, theoretically, 48 times faster than USB 1.1. For now though, we will continue to see combinations of USB and SCSI on scanners and other devices, said Lamb.
We will also see USB and Firewire combinations later this year and, possibly, version 2.0 of the Firewire specification, which may accelerate adoption.
Bluetooth technology is still some way from being usable and practical, but it is on its way and promises a great deal. Apart from the interface, scanners will continue to increase in resolution and bit depth, although the speed of change is likely to slow down.
"Products are also likely to incorporate at least one accessory as standard, although there could be a consumer backlash as they realise that a low-cost scanner will not produce as good a scan as the same priced product that offers higher resolution capability as an extra," said Lamb.
A licence to print money
According to Amer, 40 per cent of households now own a PC, and 78 per cent of all PCs are purchased with a printer. Increasingly, these printers will be used for colour output and home photo studio work. Ease of printing may be the driver for most users, but quality will also be important.
Large-format printers are expected to become more capable and popular as companies bring basic print needs in-house. Paul Hinkins, UK business manager for large-format printers at Hewlett Packard (HP), said products will become wider and faster and will deliver a noticeable increase in print quality.
"One of the main objectives is to reduce the price per copy, but with the development of faster machines with higher levels of print quality, this is going to be a challenge," he said. "We are investing a lot of time and effort in achieving this goal."
HP plans to develop printers that will print photographs on indestructible paper, or web-connected printers that will print newspapers and tickets online. "Printers will be defined by service delivery, not just by how fast they print."
Dermot Hegarty, UK operations manager at printer vendor GCC Technologies, believed we will see more combination devices capable of multifunctional printing and managed document printing. "There is a move towards sales of digital output devices which can be connected to existing office network environments," he said.
Photocopiers may still be cheaper, but vendors will respond with new combinations. Print giant Lexmark recently introduced an all-inclusive promotion, which enables customer to pay per page. The vendor's financing deal covers purchase price, consumables, warranty and finance.
Lifestyle developments
Various developments are taking place on the screen front. Plasma and thin film transistor (TFT) technology are now realistic alternatives for home entertainment use and are increasingly being used as screens in vehicles. According to Amer, the cost of plasma displays has come down and will soon be in line with TFT prices.
The popularity of wide-screen technology and the availability of multiple inputs on many devices means that displays can cope with a greater variation of formats. Coupled with reduced size and weight and more emphasis on design, this is putting more products into the lifestyle category. With digital TV growing, Amer can see massive potential. "We are just waiting for vendors other than Sony to seize the opportunity," he said.
Ian Vickerage, managing director at distributor Imago Micro, expects the home user to influence the development of audio technology. "The advent of plasma means larger screen sizes and higher resolution for home cinema, presentation and public information systems. We will also see a reduction in size and weight," he said.
Everyone in IT talks about network-attached storage (NAS) and Sans these days, and Paul Sleep, library product manager at storage vendor M4 Data, expects these to be the main growth areas for externally connected devices. "The web will drive the need for more storage and will expand the San arena. Clustering will also affect the demand for SAN solutions," he said.
What's in store?
An exciting development in storage peripherals is Infiniband technology. This will bring applications and storage networks back together again and double the speed and bandwidth of storage devices.
More immediately, PCIX, the new version of PCI, will open up the bottleneck between storage devices and the system bus, doubling bandwidth to motherboards. Closer still is the 15,000rpm disk drive with lower seek times, higher performance and standard capacities of up to 80Gb. But for the external units, the advances being made in USB 2.0, Firewire and Fibre Channel connectivity are likely to be the strongest influences on products.
Both NAS and San technologies are creating a need for peripherals to have embedded servers and network-attached or Fibre Channel capability, said Sleep. "NAS enables organisations to add storage to their network without any interruption in service, and this feature is also being used in the high-end by the likes of EMC."
- USB 2.0, Firewire and Fibre Channel will greatly influence the development of plug-and-play peripherals in the future.
- Bluetooth will help to open up the peripherals market by making it possible to move peripheral devices between localised piconets very easily.
- Projectors will sell easily as they become better, cheaper and more portable.
- Zoom and pixel definitions will improve on digital cameras and help webcams to develop.
- Network attachment of modular storage and scanners/projectors will become much easier.
- Multifunctional and combinational peripherals will continue to develop and become less of a compromise to the user.
See also:
Digital camera, video camera or voice recorder? Toshiba get multifunctional with a top-quality digital device. 04 Sep 2000
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