The Oliver Wallington Interview - November 13th 2008
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I found the BeoSound 5 quite logical and easy to operate – how much thought went into the actual user interface?
Well, we wanted to avoid the two dimensional kind of interface and hark back to the old ‘knobs and dials’ of classic B&O products like the radiogram. Our original model was totally flat, but we wanted to give the feeling of ‘looking inside’ an album which led to the current design.
As far as i understand, the dealers demo models will be ‘dumbed down’ or ‘stripped out’ version – what exactly is left to do, or what will be omitted from or added to the actual product when it is launched?
It’s not really a case of adding or omitting, but simply making sure the product will be perfect. We will carry on testing the product during this time and refine the software.
As an example – what will happen if you upload an album that has no cover art attached?
If you rip to BeoPlayer it will use gracenote to get the required information, and we also have the Net Radio which will be provided by the actual radio provider – but to be honest i am not sure about adding these yourself as it wasn’t my task. I know the prototypes a lot better!
With regards to left handed users, would it have been easy to allow the display to ‘flip over’ and the buttons and lever to reverse? Surely it can’t be too hard?
There were actually a lot of prototypes made where we were playing around with that, but there were a combination of reasons we didn’t do that. You would be amazed how different right and left handed products actually look, both from a ‘flow’ of reading perspective and also a design element. There is also a technical challenge involved in all of the connections, especially rotating DVI.
So, it was purely a financial reason to leave it out?
No, not really – it was honestly more of a technical challenge, but of course a total redesign would have cost a lot of money and this would have to be passed on to the customer. It was possible, but there were a lot of reasons why not.
Being honest, is there anything about the BeoSound 5 where you though ‘hmm, we missed that out and we shouldn’t have’ or ‘we missed a trick there’ ?
Oooh, you are kind of asking the person who’s job it is to come up with all of this!!! (laughs). Obviously this is a difficult question as this is a launch we are all very proud of, but it is my role to question everything. On early prototypes we were looking at more mechanical clicks, forced feedbacks and many other elements. It could have been nicer if it was wireless, but then you have also got the power constraints.
Personally, and this is only my own taste, i would have liked the wheel to have been a little heavier.
I agree, i too found it very light.
In defence of the product though, when the designer placed the scroll wheel on the top of the screen it gave us a lot less space to work with, so that really constrained us.
I have been told that podcasts are not available to it, is that true?
There were quite a few more sources which we considered at the design stage, like BBC on-demand, podcasts, music services etc – but they weren’t actually ready at the time.
One question of my own, and forgive me if it’s a bit left-field – is there any way of downloading libraries, albums or songs directly from the BeoSound/BeoMaster 5 directly to an Mp3 device like an iPod or BeoSound 6?
We were quite sure about that aspect as we didn’t want a product you could just buy music on, then distribute to other sources etc. We decided that the computer could do this task as we wanted to keep the BeoPlayer the ‘hub’ or ‘switching station’.
Will you, or have you improved BeoPlayer at all in order to enhance the experience with the BeoSound 5?
Just using the prototype BeoSound 5 at home i have noticed a lot of software updates, but i’m not aware of any redesigns – just the back-end updates. The BeoPlayer is totally ‘ready’ for the BeoSound 5, that i can say. There is also the BeoConnect which will allow import of iTunes songs for Mac Users.
At the software design stage, was integration with Macs a concern / hot topic?
Well, Mac is going to great lengths to protect its own business, and now that problem has been passed to us by Mac users! (laughs). We have the whole DRM issue – and at the end of the day they are doing it for their own business, which can certainly cause us problems.
Are Apple being ‘aloof’ then? Being realistic, they can afford to be..
Obviously we aren’t competing with Apple so have never had a real problem, but from talking to some of the software guys here it has been conveyed that digging into things like iTunes has been extremely difficult. They have a business to protect after all, but maybe in the future we’ll send someone to talk to them and it will all click into place.
Okay, being negative as well as positive – people will always compare a media server to something like Apple TV or a similar device. What argument could you have in favour of the BeoSound 5 to effectively ‘quosh’ these comparisons?
There will always be a portion of the market that are happy to use their TV as a way of displaying their navigation of Audio and Video collections, but with Beoplayer we are effectively doing that as well. However, there are always going to be a number of people who don’t want to turn that big screen on just to listen to music. It’s big, it takes up more power – and it can detract from the listening experience. We still feel there is a place for a standalone audio product.
I heard the words ‘ripping service’ mentioned in the past – can you expand?
Yes, certainly. Some of our dealers have used, for the BeoMedia, independent companies that will rip all of your CD’s to Mp3. I’m not sure what it costs, but using one global supplier so to speak would get costs down – however, it’s a pretty localised thing. One other thing to think of is that one company may tag all of your Christmas songs ‘folk’ and another may label them ‘pop’ and having one standard company with a consistent tagging format would be beneficial.. However, just the idea of being able to literally turn up with a box of CD’s and have someone do all the work for you is rather appealing!
In the future, do you see any formats, functionalities or revolutionary ideas coming over the horizon with regards the way we listen to and access our music, and can the BeoSound 5 be adapted to incorporate these easily?
We don’t actually have an ‘official’ comment on how the product will/can develop functionality wise, but at the moment we are focusing on making the existing product last an perform better. I’ve seen some interesting things done with the BeoSound 5, but these were only exploratory and nothing has been decided for its future direction with any ‘new formats’.
But if something does come along, would it be easy to do?
With that in mind, we did lean towards making the actual user interface (ie the buttons) as ‘neutral’ as possible. We stripped it right down to two arrows and a Go button, so we can do much more with what we have should we need to. That said, personally i hope that it will always be an Audio unit as it adds more value to the product. If it did all things to all people, we would be simply selling a ‘functions list’ and not a specialised product.
But what if in the future you could add say a separate box to the set-up with a (for instance) 3 terabyte memory that could store Video only – could you upload software to the Beomaster 5 to allow Video control and distribution and cover all bases?
Technically yes, but i would rather not from the conceptual point of view. Also because when we were developing the unit it was totally focused on being an audio navigator and is possibly not in the position that perhaps you would want a video navigator – if that makes sense!
What about when you connect the BeoMaster 5 to say a Beovision 9 – can you replicate the admittedly very pretty BeoSound 5 display on your TV screen?
No, the BeoSound 5 screen is the only time you will see this. If you connect the BeoMaster 5 only to the Television it will show BeoMedia. However, if you have all three, the BeoSound 5 will handle music control and BeoMedia will pick up the rest such as photo’s and movies.
Changing subject slightly – where do you feel (or know!) what ‘area’ the next ‘killer product is coming from? Whilst i know you can’t say too much – please, throw us a morsel !!
(laughs) For me, personally – i would like B&O to redefine product categories. There are a lot of strange products coming out from other manufacturers in general, because now we are going over to digital platforms it is easy to add functionality ‘because we can’.. Their functions lists get so huge they get lost in themselves. My dream and hope is that with being ideally placed to create new categories, they will !
Do you think being that adventurous can lead to unnecessary risks financially for the company? Human beings like familiarity, but will always gravitate to what is familiar but better.. Is that not a safer option?
I think one of the best examples in recent history is MicroSofts MediaCentre. They tried to define a totally new product category and it didn’t necessarily work. What Sony are doing is taking the PS3 gaming platform and turning it into a Media Centre somehow, which further blends things. But i really feel that there is progress to be made in this area.
How do you feel when people simply ‘parrot’ tech specs of other manufacturers products that on paper ‘trump’ a B&O product at a quarter of the price?
We obviously look at this a lot - then we go out and buy them, bring them back and play with these things. It’s then you realise that whilst they have all these features, they just don’t seem to work beautifully.. they promise a lot, and when you are used to Bang & Olufsen they just ‘don’t do it’ for you like a B&O product does. Also, when it comes to cost we cannot be forced into justifying our higher prices by simply throwing more functions at a product – that’s not the idea. It’s ease of use, build quality and design that we aim for.
With some of the products recently released, BeoWorld’s members are looking for more and more products that really define what B&O is all about – are there more of these coming that you are involved with?
Well, there’s a corridor i would love to walk you down to see, but.. (laughs). To be honest, this is quite a strategic time for us. We need a good portfolio, and perhaps some of the things we have in this portfolio right now don’t quite fit and need to be removed over say the next few years.
I suppose i am regarded as a little bit of a trouble-maker in the company – i even bagged a seat next to Kalle on the plane home from the last trip so i could ‘bend his ear’ about my various thoughts and issues. I am very passionate about the brand and the company, and even though there are plenty of more ‘conservative’ people, we have plenty of people like me to keep pushing!!
Referring to the conservative people - you could say that the beauty of Bang & Olufsen as a company is that it’s very Danish, but also the downside is that.. it’s very Danish ?!!
(laughs) Yes, you could say that. However, i’m very happy that the BeoSound 5 is a ‘crazy mix of buttons and levers’ but has been toned down somewhat. It’s a really good blend of cultures! There is absolutely nothing wrong with Bang & Olufsen in terms of innovation etc, but maybe we need to streamline our operation to get products to market faster. However, i think that’s really something to discuss with Kalle!
So – how do you personally see the future of Bang & Olufsen in terms of the product portfolio?
Well, as we move to more digitally based platforms, we can then concentrate more on what Bang & Olufsen is all about a little more such as materials, user interface, design and concept. One of the biggest challenges we face is to concentrate not on what we do, but more on what we don’t do. We really need to ‘cherry pick’ the concepts that are really Bang & Olufsen.
That said, there is a massive divide between say 20 year olds and 40 year olds – so we have to be very aware that what is cutting edge to some people is old technology to others! However, i can say we have some pretty cool stuff coming..
Well Oliver, our interview time is over, so on behalf of BeoWorld – thank you for talking to us!
You are most welcome!
End
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