LG Press Event Part 1: Keyword is “Smart”
Phil Lelyveld
Entertainment Technology Center
Actress Jane Lynch from Fox’s “Glee” delivered a prerecorded introduction to the LG press event before John Taylor, VP LG Electronics took the stage as emcee.
Wayne Park, EVP of corporate strategy and president/CEO of LG Electronics USA gave a state of the company presentation. North America accounts for approximately 25% of LG’s global revenues. The company has four core focus areas in 2011:
1. Competitiveness: bringing products to market faster.
2. Preparing for future business: LG is investing $12 billion in R&D in 2011.
3. Quality: the company will operate under 6 SIGMA principles.
4. Talent Development: the company will encourage creativity, autonomy, and fairness for all employees.
Dr. Skott Ahn, president/CTO of LG Worldwide, presented LG’s strategy and introduced new product lines. LG’s key word for 2011 is “smart”: smart user interfaces, smart sharing capabilities, and smart applications. They have developed an integrated, multi-pane user interface for searching, finding, and enjoying content. Their Media Link will automatically search out relevant metadata from the web.
LG announced a number of content aggregators (no studios or networks were on the list) and the launch of an apps store. For consumers who, for various reasons, don’t want to upgrade to a Smart TV, LG announced a Smart TV Upgrader box that will provide equivalent functionality to earlier models.
LG will introduce its new tablet computer at a separate press event tomorrow. Stay tuned…
