Strategy in TECH...
Respected custom integration industry executive JC Murphy, the Chief Commercial Officer of Savant Systems Inc. (Savant), has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) Smart Home Division. CTA is the leading association for the consumer electronics industry and owns and produces the iconic CES exposition event. It also has a Smart Home Division, which exists to advance the smart home industry.
This past Sunday, on the eve of this week’s launch of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) released updated projections for total Tech industry sales in the year, as is its custom. According to the trade association, total Tech industry sales are expected to reach $537 billion – the highest level in history.
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organization that owns and operates the Consumer Electronics Show, has notified members that it has “changed our [dues] structure and dues.” They weren’t kidding, depending on the membership category your company falls under, along with your annual revenues, your dues may have increased greater than five-fold, starting with your 2023 dues. Ouch!
On Monday evening (January 3, 2022), as part of their festivities kicking off the 2022 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Vice President of Research for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Steve Koenig shared what the association believes to be some of the top trends in Tech today. Saying, “…we’ve witnessed an abundance of innovation across this whole season and certainly over the past year…”
Heading to CES 2022? Be sure to check the online version of the show schedule regularly, as Advertising Age (Ad Age) is reporting that CES has apparently removed “a slate of programs,” including several previously scheduled sessions and panels planned for Tuesday. The move is said to be a result of so many companies and executives canceling or otherwise pulling out of the show.
Strata-gee readers reached out to me on late Friday as word circulated that the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) was taking the unusual step of cutting the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) short by one day “…as an additional safety measure.” That is essentially all that an announcement from the association says about this decision, which on the face of it seems to call into question the safety of attending the event at all.
**SEE BELOW FOR STORY UPDATE** – On Tuesday, several large exhibitors independently announced that they would be pulling out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), scheduled to start the week-after-next in Las Vegas, NV. The reason given for these pull-outs was the rapidly spreading COVID-19 infections due to the emerging hyper-infectious Omicron variant. Major brands, such as Amazon, Meta Platforms (Facebook), T-Mobile and more said the rapidly changing COVID situation caused them to consider the safety of their teams and other attendees of CES 2022 – a major indoor event.
The Consumer Electronics Show – CES 2021 – opened this week with great fanfare, but no long taxi lines, no crowded booths, and no glitzy hands-on displays. That’s because this year, CES is virtual – or as the CTA (Consumer Technology Association) likes to put it, it is “all digital.”
Can they pull it off?
Who says the mainstream media has abandoned CES? No less than the venerable Forbes.com ran a feature story that noted an enthusiastic crowd gathered around a booth offering a dynamic presentation on an amazing new technology…a ‘smart’ potato. No, this is NOT a spoof by The Onion – it is real. Yes, the booth and young man promoting the smart potato was a stunt…but the article from Forbes about it is real.
For many, many years the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) – an exposition hosted by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) – was a huge part of the technology industry. In many ways, it was virtually the embodiment of tech – you HAD to go there to discover the latest products that were being shown to buyers so they could get their orders placed in time for the prime selling season starting in the fall of that year.
