Growth of Multimedia Hubs Spurs Home Entertainment Networking

Declining implementation costs for storage, advanced processors, and home networking solutions drives dedicated media platforms toward larger adoption in 2004 and 2005

Dallas, Texas January 28, 2004 /Wi-Fi Technology News/- Multimedia hubs will reach mass-market status by the end of 2008, with more than 40 million units shipping to U.S. households, according to Parks Associates? report Multimedia Networks in the Home: Analysis and Forecasts.

The growing availability of digital content and simultaneous cost reductions in storage, processing, and home networking have spurred growth in these solutions, which allow households to manage their entertainment content. Devices such as personal video recorders, DVD recorders with hard drive storage, online gaming consoles, and dedicated music servers will simultaneously drive growth of additional multimedia connectivity solutions.

?Multimedia hubs will be key interfaces to the digital content and services now entering mainstream households,? said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst for Parks Associates. ?Service providers, consumer electronics companies, and PC and peripheral manufacturers are responding to heightened consumer awareness and demand by deploying a wide variety of platforms to store, aggregate, and network content within the residential environment. We?re quite optimistic about the sales outlook for these solutions in 2004 and 2005.?

Parks Associates? report Multimedia Networks in the Home: Analysis and Forecasts addresses the prospects for entertainment connectivity in the home. The report, with more than 90 pages of analysis and nearly 100 charts and figures, includes profiles of platforms from both the PC and CE industries and examines the underlying drivers for the growth of multimedia networking. For more information on this or other Parks Associates? research, please contact Parks Associates at 972-490-1113 or at sales@parksassociates.com.

For more information about the home networking market, download the white paper The Home Network Market: Data and Multimedia Connectivity at http://www.parksassociates.com.

About Parks Associates: Parks Associates is a market research and consulting firm focused on all product and service segments that are ?digital? or provide connectivity within the home. The company?s expertise includes home networks, digital entertainment, consumer electronics, broadband and Internet services, and home systems.

Founded in 1986, Parks Associates creates research capital for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to small start-ups through market reports, multiclient studies, consumer research, workshops, and custom-tailored client solutions. Parks Associates also hosts two executive seminars, both part of the Fall Focus series, and co-hosts CONNECTIONS? (in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association) each year. http://www.parksassociates.com.