Philips gets out of the television business

Philips is getting out of the television business, forming a partnership with Hong Kong's TPV Technology to make and market TV under the Philips brand.

After 80 years, Philips is getting out of the television business, entering into a long-term partnership with Hong Kong’s TPV Technology to form a new company that will develop and market televisions under the Philips brand. The new joint venture will be 70 percent owned by TPV, with Philips controlling the remaining 30 percent with an option to unload it in as soon as five years. In exchange, Philips will receive royalties of at least €50 million per year and a proportion of sales.

“The partnership will help create the scale and focus needed for our Television business to return to profitability and to be successful in the very dynamic television industry,” said newly-installed Philips CEO Frans van Houten. “We are committed to the continuity of Philips Televisions in the market through this venture.”

Philips was one of the last television producers in Europe, and its departure from the consumer market basically leaves European TV production to high-end niche manufacturers like Bang & Olufsen and Loewe AG.

The company’s departure from the television business is just the latest withdrawal of Philips from the consumer marketplace: the company had previously left the mobile phone business, sold off its semiconductor operations in 2006. Philips had previously sold its computer display business to TPV back in 2004. Philips’ TV business had lost money for the last four years and was expected to post another loss this year; it employs about 4,000 people. Industry-watchers expect some of those employees will transition to the new joint venture; under the deal, the new company will be responsible for designing, manufacturing, and selling Philips-branded TVs around the world, with notable exceptions like mainland China, the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, and selected South American markets.

Philips’ new CEO Frans van Houten took over the company earlier this month, and had stated from the outside that addressing issues with the television division would be one of his top priorities—although few had expected Philips to simply walk away from it. Philips remains a world leading manufacturer of health care and lighting products, as well as selected consumer products like baby monitors, toothbrushes, razors, and electronic accessories.

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Samsung shows iTunes-like social, reading, music, media, business ‘Hubs’ for Galaxy Tabs

In addition to announcing new tablets at CTIA, Samsung also showed off a whole suite of apps, services, and business features for its Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S devices.
In addition to unveiling a new 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab and redesigning its upcoming 10.1-inch offering a few moments ago, Samsung showed off a whole suite of software and services aimed at turning its line of touch tablets into a premium offering, much like Apple has done with its iTunes ecosystem on the iPad. The company rolled out the announcements at lightning speed and was loose on details, so bear with us if there are any inaccuracies.
Samsung’s entire Galaxy Tab line will come with its newest Android UI modification, TouchWiz 4.0. Upon first glance (we’ll have more detailed impressions soon), the new UI appears to smooth out a few of Android Honeycomb’s graphical shortcomings. Its biggest features are “Live Panels,” a new widget system, and a new “Mini App Tray.”
Live Panels: Samsung has created a new set of new, large widgets for Android 3.0 and an easy way to resize and reorganize them on your homescreen. Many of these widgets are “Hub” apps that I will describe in a bit.
Mini Apps Tray: Similar to the iPad, this is a row of large shortcuts at the bottom of the homescreen. It looks very similar to OSX and iOS.
In addition to its user experience enhancements to Android Honeycomb, Samsung users on Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab devices will soon get access to a new suite of apps that Samsung is calling “Hubs.” These were first unveiled at the Mobile World Congress, but will now be on tablets as well.
Social Hub: This hub hopes to be a unified inbox for all your communication needs. Email, calendar, contacts, social networks, and messaging will all be condensed into one location. Facebook hopes to accomplish this as well. Organizing all of this data is always harder than it appears.
Readers Hub: This app will have a full e-book library, 2300 magazines, newspapers, and other reading material for sale or subscription.
Music Hub: Samsung is getting into the ring with iTunes. It plans to sell music on its own service (we assume MP3s as no streaming feature was announced). Sony recently announced its own media store as well.
Media Hub: This app will have “first-run movies and next day TV shows” available. We don’t know exactly how the rental/purchasing will work or how much it will cost. No details were announced.
A boatload of business features were announced for the Galaxy Tabs as well. In an attempt to make IT departments happier, the Galaxy Tabs will have data encryption, a BusinessObjects Explorer that lets you take business documents on the go, Exchange ActiveSync support, Sybase support, Cisco AnyConnect, and productivity software similar to Microsoft’s Office suite which will allow users to create PowerPoint slideshows, Word documents, and Excel documents.
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