ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
well i hope to be proved wrong......current Play products broadly work with most mobiles (i.e. iPhones and Android), very few issues there really......Soundbars have all sorts of connectivity issues.....many 3-4 year old TVs, and possibly more current ones, dont pass through 5.1 audio out of the Tv to a sound bar.....so undermines a simple plug and play pitch to many consumers.....of course others wont mind hooking up individual source audio directly to a sound bar.....but thats kind of my point, Play products are general out of the box plug and play, it just works type of products......a sound bar presents a few more challenges simplicity wise.......guess we'll see over time....
Paul W: Haha, I knew that you'd comment on that Simon. I know that you're a BeoPlay customer but gosh, it's the first rule of any product launch - you pick a specific market, demographic and work from there. It's impossible to have a product that EVERY age and demographic will buy. Don't forget that you work in design, so you are more savvy in that respect. As you know, every product, every brand has a 'specific one person' in mind. Without that, the brand manager cannot identify the brand. It's the first thing that they are asked: Who will buy this? If he says everyone from a 15 to 80 year old, he really would not be taken seriously! But what is clear from PLAY is that there really was not a large market for a TV at that kind of price and of course you can see why. UK income is not rising, in fact, it seems to be decreasing - t's amazing how many marketing positions are paying less than £20K a year even in LONDON!!! once you've bought bicycles, travel, holidays, weekends away, clothes, socialising etc a £2600 TV seems out of the question.
Haha, I knew that you'd comment on that Simon. I know that you're a BeoPlay customer but gosh, it's the first rule of any product launch - you pick a specific market, demographic and work from there. It's impossible to have a product that EVERY age and demographic will buy. Don't forget that you work in design, so you are more savvy in that respect. As you know, every product, every brand has a 'specific one person' in mind. Without that, the brand manager cannot identify the brand. It's the first thing that they are asked: Who will buy this? If he says everyone from a 15 to 80 year old, he really would not be taken seriously!
But what is clear from PLAY is that there really was not a large market for a TV at that kind of price and of course you can see why. UK income is not rising, in fact, it seems to be decreasing - t's amazing how many marketing positions are paying less than £20K a year even in LONDON!!! once you've bought bicycles, travel, holidays, weekends away, clothes, socialising etc a £2600 TV seems out of the question.
Thanks Paul for the guidance. I'm a Designer currently working on the pre-program phase of a new car program so I'm quite aware of customer archetypes and the product definition we go through. I attend marketing clinics and work in this area as part of the instigation of a new product.An example of this process was a current car where we famously created a character called Antonella as our archetype. In reality the product is bought by 46 year old males too and they benefit from us being able to say to the engineers that "Antonella would benefit from changing the packaging of the internal components". I'm a Beoplay customer willing to continue to buy B&O as I started out with the MX and the Century.
Beo Century ,Beoplay V1, Beocenter 6, Ex-Beolit 12, Beotime , A8. Beolit 15 , Form 2i , Beolab 2000, Beoplay A3.Beosound 1
Here we are Paul http://www.sub5zero.com/ford-has-designed-a-new-model-and-her-name-antonella/
when we wanted to spend a bit more money to put the fog lamps separately in the bumper instead of lowering the bottom line of the main rear light clusters it was for Antonella.
Paul W: Simon, click on the official BEOPLAY Pinterest brand manual that I posted above. It shows you exactly who PLAY is aiming at with its products and its brands that they feel their customers associate with!
Simon, click on the official BEOPLAY Pinterest brand manual that I posted above. It shows you exactly who PLAY is aiming at with its products and its brands that they feel their customers associate with!
Would be nice if you could provide a link, that does not require a logon.
I am not a member of that club ;-))
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
Sal: Millemissen:&O found that the best partner would be Twonky. I would really like to know how this decision was made internally at B&O. Did they test or use a variety before settling on Twonky? There are quite a few more solutions in much wider (and more customizable) use than TwonkyServer.
Millemissen:&O found that the best partner would be Twonky.
I would really like to know how this decision was made internally at B&O. Did they test or use a variety before settling on Twonky?
There are quite a few more solutions in much wider (and more customizable) use than TwonkyServer.
I guess that the integration with iTunes was important there.
Do you know of any other DLNA server, that provides this?
Twonky is a reputable company, that you would not expect to disappear tomorrow.
Which 'solutions' do you have in mind?
P.S. I am sure, that they tested Twonky before - Twonky was used as the mediaserver functionallity was added to the BM5.
Beolab 50, Beolab 8000 x 2, Beolab 4000 x 2, BeoSound Core, BeoSound 9000, BeoSound Century, BeoLit 15, BeoPlay A1, BeoPlay P2, BeoPlay H9 3rd Gen, BeoPlay H6, EarSet 3i, BeoVision Eclipse Gen 2 55", BeoPlay V1-40, BeoCom 6000 and so much else :)
The strength of Play is its plug and play nature as opposed to B&O which requires planning and may be part of a house remodel which not everybody is doing or prepared to do. Obviously, Wisa and blue tooth requiring no wiring work does help but the uncertain media to commit to may become the empasis as opposed to what it's played on. Fm radio and physical media requiring a player was a clearer function for which to chose an output. Now it's a vehicle for the nas or apple product.
Millemissen:I guess that the integration with iTunes was important there.Do you know of any other DLNA server, that provides this?
BeoNut since '75
@elephant
Does Plex include using the iTunes library?
Millemissen:@elephant Does Plex include using the iTunes library? MM There is a tv - and there is a BV.
Michael:I think the portfolio is a bit too wide. Harder to keep products high quality when focus is on rolling out more and more. Many products are direct competitors. A2/A1 A6/BS1 A9/BS2 etc etc. sure they differ but anyway.
Check this out - apart from presenting the Horizon (IFA 2016) it states the 'philosophy' of Bang & Olufsen:
'People before technolgy'
https://youtu.be/rU7ZkyVUkPc
People need choises - glad that we have such a (diverse and still consistent) variety in the current product line.
Millemissen:Check this out - apart from presenting the Horizon (IFA 2016) it states the 'philosophy' of Bang & Olufsen: 'People before technolgy' https://youtu.be/rU7ZkyVUkPc People need choises - glad that we have such a (diverse and still consistent) variety in the current product line. MM There is a tv - and there is a BV.
I don't think the concept of having a product for every person is a good idea. Instead of focusing on making a few really good products we now have a big assortment of products that is "okey" and not really super interesting. Like the BeoPlay S3 for example. A lot of these products won't be iconic like the Beolab 8000, BS9000 and many others has become. I also feel there is a big risk with such a big product portfolio. More R&D, more storage space needed for parts and assembly lines, more work for the retailers (they need to know what they sell) and more confusion for the clients just to name a few things. Sure there is a lot of nice products in the lineup but there is a lot of products. I have a though time even trying to decide what to buy and it feels less exclusive to buy one out of ten different bluetooth speakers than out of few. Not so luxurious as I felt B&O was before.
I agree Michael. It's best to have a structured range of related products which guide the customer having attracted them. B&O did have this with the Century leading the buyer up through the Beosound 2300 , 3000 etc and the MX and Avant TVs had a resemblance. It creates a feeling of "which version shall I buy?" This consistent design shows confidence in your own brand as opposed to trying loads of shapes and hoping for the best. The headphone range starts with the wheels of an office chair and ends with precise alloy with leather. The BV 14 tries to pick up on the aspirational speaker but the wood is flat. There are some beautiful examples of wood being used in architecture showing some topographical qualities.