Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Come Together

Star-TelegramKurt Scherf, vice president of research at Parks Associates, a Dallas technology consultant, said that for now it is mainly music that will attract consumers to media-convergence products.

"We see this more for consumers who view the PC as an entertainment platform" -- witness the popularity of downloaded music -- and who want to extend its use, he said.

Computer makers such as Hewlett-Packard, Gateway and Dell are promoting their "media centers," PCs that have some of these capabilities built in, but those computers tend to be expensive and use the latest operating systems, Scherf said. Instead, consumers might prefer to buy one of the media receivers and hook it up to their existing home-entertainment equipment, he said, so they don't have to buy all new equipment to enjoy digital content.

From the article "Come Together"  By Jim Fuquay

Previously In The News

Now with Streaming Stick, Roku isn't sweating the blitz

Though Roku doesn't release sales figures, some outside data back up the notion of Roku's marketplace traction. A study from NPD found that Roku owners stream more than owners of other devices, and...

CEO: Roku's future is TV's future (Q&A)

As Netflix and YouTube put video streaming into day-to-day lives, competition among streaming-media boxes has grown from the two-horse race -- Apple TV versus Roku -- to include Google's Chromecast...

Don't assume Apple will own the smart home -- here's why

Consider usage, though, and the underdog's prospects start looking up. From a Parks Associates study, while Apple has sold more units globally, about 37 percent of US households with a streaming me...

Google's Chromecast: Holding market share, losing viewers

Good news, bad news for Google: Chromecast is holding onto its slice of the streaming-video device market even as new rivals like Amazon's Kindle Fire TV emerge, but Chromecast is being used less a...