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WPC 2006
By John Latta, WAVE 0701 1/10/07

Tokyo, Japan
September 11-13 , 2006

WPC Tokyo is in the Big Sight convention center in the Odaiba section of Tokyo (in the center of Tokyo Bay). Big Sight has 6 halls about the size of a football field each. WPC occupies 2 and during this time three other events occupy 3 other halls. WPC is a hot bed of public buying activity with several retail merchants on the floor. At one end of the hall 5 are retail merchants selling discount goods and there is even a queue minder to direct traffic in one booth.

The major PC vendors of NEC, Lenovo and Toshiba have large booths but missing is Fujitsu, Sharp and Sony. There is some overlap with CEATEC, in that, CEATEC has many PC products but this is not a PC show, while WPC is. Another advantage of WPC is that it is much closer to the center of Tokyo. There are aggregate booths from Taiwan and Korea. The conference program is more limited than at CEATEC.

We also find it interesting in spite of the major push of Intel into CE, at least in terms of VIIV, that it was missing on the show floor at both CEATEC and here at WPC. Given the strong presence of Microsoft at WPC we would have thought Intel would have a presence. At Computex Intel has its own booth off the show floor but we have found nothing here at WPC.

Microsoft

The scale is nothing less than overwhelming. This is a Vista and Office booth. At the entrance corner is a large stage for demos and presentations. In all the times we walked by it was standing room only. The center of the exhibition are 100’s of notebook PCs running Vista RC1 and Office. Seldom did we see any that were not being used so one usually had to wait for a PC to try Vista. In one section of the booth was a glass cage labeled Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs, unfortunately one could not try out these. In the back of the main stage was a small exhibit of keyboards, mice and the web cams.

The WAVE came away impressed by considerable interest in Vista by the Japanese audience. The chance to test drive Vista and Office by the public in the booth was a good marketing move.

Convergence – Are There Legs Beyond Japan?

Over and over we see these large screen PCs, 15” and above, as either a part of a notebook or some unique ID PC. In the case of the later it is hard to tell it is a PC but it certainly is not a television look alike. But the interest shown by the Japanese in Toshiba’s Qosmio product line demonstrates that there is a place in the home for a PC which is also a television. Here in the land of small living spaces, and where large screen televisions are the exception not the rule, the notion of an appliance which combines CE and the PC is quite acceptable. Toshiba is pushing its DVD write capability which can now be embedded into a notebook – bringing further strength to the role of its Qosmio product line.

In many respects what we see here is at the center of the convergence of the PC and CE. These media PCs are a single device which is multifunctional, not unlike the integrated audio systems. There is no need for dlna and a server box to make this useful in the Japanese home. MP3 players can exist outside of this environment – just as personal audio and the same goes for camcorders. In the Toshiba booth there was a dlna demo area but this seems well outside of the needs of most Japanese consumers.

All of these factors leave us wondering – Is there life for CE/PC convergence beyond Japan? There is a lot riding on the expectations of the computer industry to make it big into the CE market. Certainly Vista is more CE friendly with its handling of personal media but it remains to be seen if Vista will turn the corner for the PC industry to successfully be seen as also CE. Even in Japan it takes a lot more than a remote control to support the CE expectations of the public.

PBJ Shows UMPC

In a small booth not far from the Microsoft area is PBJ showing its Smart Caddie. In booth discussions we found that this is the only UMPC made by a Japanese company, at least currently. It is due to be released in December and will cost ¥ 13,980. The unit looks similar to the Samsung UMPC and we found the docking cradle easy to use. The booth was well attended.

But recently in Japan we have noted a surge in notebook use which are also connected to W-WAN via PC Cards. We asked PBJ what the wireless support is and this product has no PC Card slot and cannot connect to W-WAN. Further, as we have ridden the JR and the metro, signs ask to have phones turned off. Japan is much better than Europe in this regard, but many riders are using their phones to do SMS constantly. This led the WAVE to ask PBJ – will the Japanese buyers be able to use the UMPC without a keyboard? We got a weak answer which implied that the UMPC will find vertical market applications including the elderly who do not like keyboards. The appeal cited for the UMPC is its small hand held form factor and Japan likes small. Yet, here in Japan the small PCs, including some made by Fujitsu and Sony, are only slightly larger than the UMPC. As we probed PBJ the response was not as strong as we would have expected of a new product.

Our observations in Japan and here at WPC leave us wondering – in the land of small – will the UMPC find a niche? If one does a simple comparison, based on booth response alone, Vista on a notebook, especially a small one, is a hands down favorite over a UMPC.

WPC Mirrors Japanese Lifestyle

As the WAVE walked the show floor multiple times it became clear this event was not like CES or even CEATEC. It reflected what is important to the Japanese attendees and how they live. A number of themes came out which included: finding bargains, strong emphasis on ID including small devices, all-in-one products, to try the latest (especially Vista and Office) and products to accommodate the small living spaces. WPC had no 100” display panels but it did have large screen, >15”, integrated media PCs. This event was a reflection of what fits the Japanese lifestyle.

From the Show Floor

Bose

The SoundDock is a beautiful ID for the docking of an iPod. Behind the iPod are speakers which are part of a single unit. ¥ 34,860.

The Companion 5 are speakers for a notebook in the home. ¥ 59,850.

Canon

The Selphy and Pixus product line of printers is to provide in a box printing from media to print. These are well integrated and tailored to the Japanese life style of tiny and easily stored.

Epson

The Photo Fine Player P-5000 has approximately a 5” diagonal screen. The unit has an 80GB drive and will support reading removable camera media or directly from a camera. It also supports RAW formats. Playback on MPEG 4 also supported. Appealing ID.

The Calorio line of stand alone printers goes from the model E-300, E-500 and E-700. The latter has the ability to write CD’s. These printers are the functional equivalent of a color photo lab in a box – about 9” X 6” X 9”. Borderless prints and with highly saturated images. All with a cute handle to appeal to the Japanese buyers.

Announced was a new line of pigmented ink printers for the professional or advance amateur. These include the model PX-5800. they use 8 inks with the ability to hold both matt and normal black inks – which makes for 9 inks being held within the printer. Borderless prints up to 17” Units will ship at the end of November. Price approximately $1,300. The major advance over prior printers is the claim the prints will last 70 years. The print quality was stunning.

Two home projectors were shown. The EMP-TW700 is for table or ceiling projection. Supports resolutions to SXGA and contrast ratios of 10000:1. The EMP-TWD3SP is a table top unit with built in DVD player. It will also support the projection of PC images with resolutions of SXGA, XGA, SVGA and VGA. Neither unit supports dlna.

Kairen

They claimed to have the first UWB product in Japan. Called UWB Wireless VGA this is intended for video transmission. The product uses Impulse technology and will ship Q1 2007. In Japan UWB transmissions are only approved in the band from 7 – 10GHz.

Lenovo

We found the Lenovo booth curious. It had the usual ThinkPad computers but this was focused on business use. There was not a media PC present which is a clear sign of a computer for the home and especially in Japanese. Booth discussions did not net any response to why this particular focus at WPC which seemed out of step.

Microsoft

The Microsoft LiveCamNX-6000 got attention in the MS Hardware section of the Microsoft booth. Many individual liked seeing themselves.

There were a number of computers on the floor with the sticker:

Windows Vista Premium Ready

Another sticker was:

          Designed for Windows X, Windows Vista Capable

It is not at all clear how the consumer is to understand what these mean.

NEC

The Valuestar computers hardly looked like a computer. Everything revolved around the display and below it was a CE like box which had a pop open panel. Clearly geared to the media PC convergence in Japan. Models VS700/GG,

The LaVie notebooks are targeted to consumers. There are two models with television tuners installed as part of a Media Center edition.

Toshiba

     Toshiba will have HD DVD writing capability in a notebook by the end of the year. Given the booth emphasis on the Qosmio G30 we assume that this will be available in this product.

     The TDP-ET20 (J) is a home theater projector for “extreme short projection” – 1.3m to a screen which was at least 36” in the booth. The unit has a built in DVD player and Dolby 5.1 sound.

     The only dlna presence at WPC was a small section of the Toshiba booth. The WAVE looked behind the dlna television and found both CAT 5 and a television signal cable. This appeared to apply to the DVD player. Attempts to discuss the signaling and control approach were not fruitful. The booth signage stated:

Easy to find contents stored on various devices in the home.

Watch high definition over Network (DTCP-IP) when video is stored on difference devices located in different rooms.

Pause and resume is supported for content stored remotely.

Remote power on.

Willcom

A PHS cellular supplier was showing the W-Zero3 a Sharp Smart Phone based on the Microsoft Smart Phone. This is a slide model where image of the phone is of a screen and when it is slide the keyboard is exposed. The usage is in landscape mode. The device will play Windows Media. Stylist interaction. The keyboard appeared much more natural than the portrait style phones.

The KES WS009KE is a stylish phone that can complete, in terms of ID, with the likes of the Motorola Razor. But this is a straight brick phone that does not fold out.

The PocketBook 30i phone was being shown with a mobile printer that was tiny. This printer can do an 8 ½” X 11” page.

Also shown as a future concept was a wrist watch phone. Seemed obscene in size. It would even embarrass Maxwell Smart of “Get Smart.”

WAVE Comments

The activity at WPC shows the most momentum the WAVE has seen by the public around Vista. One has to be careful in extrapolating from trying a demo on a notebook in the booth to buying a new computer or purchasing a software upgrade but the trend we saw was certainly positive.

What was missing at WPC? This was another surprise. Here is our list of the missing:

Sony
Fujitsu
Sharp
Intel
Virtually anything to do with gaming
PC Software except for Microsoft
System builders
DYI PC companies and components

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Page updated 1/24/07
Copyright 4th Wave Inc, 2007