TV maker Vizio unveils PCs at CES

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Vizio, the TV maker that shook up the US market, is aiming to do the same to the PC industry with the unveiling of a line of notebooks and all-in-one PCs at the Consumer Electronics Show next week.
The California company, which has been swapping the sales top-spot with Samsung in the US LCD TV market,  says the largest product launch in its history will challenge the “sleepy giants” of the PC world in the same way it took on Samsung, Sony and other TV players.
It will be showing two Windows 7  all-in-one PCs and three notebooks at CES, notable for sleek, aluminium-styled designs  that pay due homage to Apple’s MacBook and iMac products.
“People ask why we’re taking on an industry that has tough margins, a lot of long-established competitors, and is relatively stagnant, but we say that’s exactly what the TV business was when we entered that market,” said Matt McRae, Vizio chief technology officer, in an FT interview ahead of the show.
“We’ve built a business model and strategy to identify markets that have matured and have slowed and then turn them upside down. We are uniquely advantaged in attacking stale markets that have sleepy giants that are not moving the ball forward much.”
The new products, due to ship in May, do seem to follow Vizio’s strategy in TVs of packing them with the latest features, but, with no pricing announced yet, it’s hard to tell if they will offer the same value associated with Vizio TVs, which are designed in the US but rely on Asian component makers.
“This will definitely have that Vizio value equation, where the amount of features you are going to get for a certain price point will be outstanding,” said Mr McRae.
In terms of product strategy, Vizio says this furthers its aim of bringing entertainment experiences to consumers whatever the device. It announced an expansion into smartphones and tablets at CES last year and adding PCs makes it competitive with the likes of Sony, which is pushing a “four-screen strategy” of making content transferrable between TVs, PCs, tablets and phones.
Vizio says the emphasis is on the consumer rather than the business market and the products are entertainment-focused with content able to be moved back and forth between screens using the DLNA standard.
Vizio has spent two years designing the products and the 27in and 24in all-in-ones include the motherboard in a slim base. They add a sub-woofer and remote control along with a wireless keyboard and mouse.
A 14in and 15.6in laptop are described as “thin and light” rather than Ultrabooks, but Mr McRae said they would exceed Ultrabook specifications. A second 15.6in model will offer “extreme portable performance”.
Like its TVs, Vizio will market the devices in North America, with no plans at present for launches in other markets.
Shipments of all-in-one PCs grew 39 per cent globally in 2011, according to NPD DisplaySearch forecasts, while notebook PC shipments rose by 12 per cent. LCD TV shipments rose 13 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter.

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