Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

 Amazon and Google lead way on virtual assistant 
dealmaking at CES 
By Tim Bradshaw in Las Vegas
Cue robots, which function as a teaching assistant, on display at the 
wide-ranging CES
Source: dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo.

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CHAPTER 4 CUSTOMER ANALYSIS
convention centre when the show officially opens 
on Tuesday.
On Monday evening, the company announced a 
wave of new integrations for its Assistant, which 
the internet group says now works with more than 
1,500 devices. Additions to that line-up include voice-
activated speakers and headphones from LG and 
JBL, and television sets from Sony and TCL.
Google is also using its existing network of 
Android devices to push out its Assistant, including 
to millions of cars from the likes of Ford, GM, Volk-
swagen and Volvo.
After Amazon released its first Echo speakers 
with screens a few months ago, Google is playing 
catch-up by teaming with JBL, Lenovo, LG and 
Sony on ‘smart displays’, which can show YouTube 
clips, show images stored in Google Photos and make 
video calls.
Amazon may have beaten Google to the idea of 
giving a virtual assistant a screen, but it was Chinese 
internet group Baidu that first launched that combi-
nation at CES a year ago.
On Monday, Baidu launched three new smart 
speakers running its DuerOS conversational AI plat-
form. These include the pop-in Aladdin smart dome 
light, an unusual combination of ceiling lamp and 
projector aimed at the Japanese market, and the 
Little Fish VSI Smart Speaker, a countertop-sized 
touchscreen device which resembles Amazon’s Echo 
Show.
Kun Jing, general manager of Baidu’s Duer divi-
sion, said that adding a display to a smart speaker 
made a ‘very big difference’ to how often customers 
use its virtual assistant, compared with voice-only 
devices.
‘The most efficient way for people to communi-
cate with the device is to use our voice but the most 
efficient way for the computer to communicate back 
to us is a screen,’ he said.
Despite the frantic deal making, not all electron-
ics groups are eager to get into bed with Amazon and 
Google.
Samsung, in its CES presentation on Monday, 
made no mention of Alexa or Google Assistant, 
instead pushing its own digital helper Bixby into its 
smart TVs, Gear smartwatches and connected cars 
through its Harman subsidiary.
HS Kim, president and head of Samsung’s global 
consumer products division, said the Bixby’s 
‘next-level intelligence’ would ‘intuitively under-
stand you and figure out what you need before you 
even have to ask’. By 2020, all Samsung connected 
devices will be imbued with Bixby’s intelligence, 
he promised.
For mobile market leaders Samsung, Google 
and Apple, mastering digital assistants that are 
Consumers flock to smart speakers
Source
: Tim Bradshaw in Las Vegas “Amazon and Google lead way on virtual assistant dealmaking at CES”, 
Financial Times, JANUARY 9, 2018.