Hope this might be worth a separate thread. I learnt from the dealer conference thread that a Beo6 is coming which is completely puzzling to me, when B&O have clearly brought in some XCode developers to build C+ apps that run on iOS.

The ideal Beo5 replacement would be a package of hardware/software - like TomTom for iPhone - that combines a bluetooth or wireless Airplay receiver with some software that runs as a universal App for iPhone and iPad (maybe Android as well) and the remote control device. I appreciate they have gone half-way in this direction with the £2.5k Gateway product (that few will buy), but they would sell thousands of kits to exisiting owners with a solution priced at £499-£599 that combined this kind of receiver and software from the App Store.

I had a Beo5 for 2 months and then sold it. It was too clunky to setup and use. I found the Beo4 got me from A-B faster.

Imagine the possibilities if they went in this quicker to develop direction (iOS or Android):
- Live TV schedule updates displayed on screen
- Simple user customisation of features and button placement
- Vastly superior interface and leverage of the Retina (Apple) or OLED (Android) displays
- Ability to link to Movie recommendations or even a B&O community
- Make MOTs more worthwhile by aggregating this data across all its customers - like Genius.
- Improved customer experience with simplified self-service software updates direct from the App store and the ability to customise without the need to connect to a PC or worse spend £50 each time you want to make a change at your dealer.

Instead the Beo6 seems stuck on the faults of the Beo5 and is trying to expand the functionality of the BS/BM5 combination that is dead-end technology. Why?

I want B&O to deliver long lasting and surprising experiences and that means integrating with my digital life. Anyone else for this £500 dream?

I don't want to be too blunt, but the idea of the iPhone app being the primary remote is "not smart." Any company who builds its own ecosystem has to be primarily in control of their interface and when that interface. In order to guarantee an experience and reliably develop features of their hardware portfolio into the future, that interface must be within their control. If we were talking about products with a 12 month shelf life and a 2-3 year use cycle (like Apple products or Sony TVs), we might be able to have a different discussion. But frankly half my B&O equipment is older than the Bondi Blue iMac that marked Steve's return to Apple. How on earth can I trust that a disposable product made today is going to be around to control my television system in 15 years!? 

So while having an app for control is an important part of the experience, it's only just that: a part. 

While I appreciate that individuals will have preferences and experiences that are unique, it would be imprudent for a company to consider apps on 3rd party devices as their exclusive means of control. Then answer, going forward, will be continuing development in both directions. 

On a more specific note, Mawheel, the Beo6 has a very different physical feel than the Beo5, which is marked by a sort of "bendy-spongy" feeling in the screen because of the "touch and go" button design. Then new Beo6 is extremely solid and the screen is slimmer. The touch screen is now like interacting with an iPhone in landscape mode than an old ATM machine. You may find that you like it much more than the Beo5. 

TripEnglish:

 Any company who builds its own ecosystem has to be primarily in control of their interface and when that interface. In order to guarantee an experience and reliably develop features of their hardware portfolio into the future, that interface must be within their control.

This is what Apple has got right with their own business model - they are in control of their own product platform, from top to bottom. Bang & Olufsen can't do this as they aren't a large enough company - they just don't have the resources (or knowledge required) to supply you with every part of the home entertainment 'experience', but the bits they really are very good at (their core competences you might say) are vitally important (and that includes the remote controls).

One of the best bits of my Beosystem 6500 is the BeoLink 1000 I use with it - in fact it outshines almost anything available for equivalent systems today. I doubt you'll be able to say the same of the iPhone or iPod Touch in ~20 years time...

Mawheele;

The 2,5 Gateway product you mention: Can you expand on that for a minute ?

There have been a few discussions on the MLGW since it was announced - for most I think price is an issue since it originally seemed to be mainly for home automation integration but maybe that is changing:

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/page.asp?id=656 <= B&O announcement/description/etc

http://ikatu.com/en/rnd/mlgw <= these guys say they built it for B&O, 2 x end user videos on this page

http://vimeo.com/7932602 <=an indepth presentation by an Ikatu engineer

mawheele:

Hope this might be worth a separate thread. I learnt from the dealer conference thread that a Beo6 is coming which is completely puzzling to me, when B&O have clearly brought in some XCode developers to build C+ apps that run on iOS.

The ideal Beo5 replacement would be a package of hardware/software - like TomTom for iPhone - that combines a bluetooth or wireless Airplay receiver with some software that runs as a universal App for iPhone and iPad (maybe Android as well) and the remote control device. I appreciate they have gone half-way in this direction with the £2.5k Gateway product (that few will buy), but they would sell thousands of kits to exisiting owners with a solution priced at £499-£599 that combined this kind of receiver and software from the App Store.

I had a Beo5 for 2 months and then sold it. It was too clunky to setup and use. I found the Beo4 got me from A-B faster.

Imagine the possibilities if they went in this quicker to develop direction (iOS or Android):
- Live TV schedule updates displayed on screen
- Simple user customisation of features and button placement
- Vastly superior interface and leverage of the Retina (Apple) or OLED (Android) displays
- Ability to link to Movie recommendations or even a B&O community
- Make MOTs more worthwhile by aggregating this data across all its customers - like Genius.
- Improved customer experience with simplified self-service software updates direct from the App store and the ability to customise without the need to connect to a PC or worse spend £50 each time you want to make a change at your dealer.

Instead the Beo6 seems stuck on the faults of the Beo5 and is trying to expand the functionality of the BS/BM5 combination that is dead-end technology. Why?

I want B&O to deliver long lasting and surprising experiences and that means integrating with my digital life. Anyone else for this £500 dream?

Well, without knowing the Beo6 specs yes, i have to agree with you. The point is and has always been, that the B&O engineers simply has to be +55 year old guys not knowing what is happening outside Struer. I think adding HDMI ports just about 2 years ago(I seem to remember) tells the story. At the moment they are struggeling with faulty products and instead of focusing on this, they introduce a 1000£ ipod dock..... Oh yes, and a BS5 encore rumored to be WITHOUT masterlink...so basicly an 3.000£ ipod, just without the touchscreen.

I fail to understand their R&D department, i mean where do they do their research? I do not need a 3D B&O screen or OLED etc. However what i do need, is userfriendly products with WOW factor as B&O used to be. Not "Hey look at my brand new 100% customizable remotecontrol that can be customized by just taking it to your B&O dealer and paying him to hook it up to a computer" Why and how on earth did they come to the conclusion that this was the right way of introcuding it? And what about SW updates? B&O I think by now, we can fairly conclude that the internet is here to stay, so instead of sending a dealer to update every single sold tv 5 times a year, how about adapting online  user update possibillities onwards?

I know there is somekind of Analog/digital overlapping fase where everything has to be reinvented at the same time as it has to be backwards compatible. However, please dont let it be 20 years.

THAT said, I am looking forward to see what the BEO6 is about, but based on my last year of B&O experience, i am almost expecting to be disappointet 

But lets wait and see.

/Ehlerz

elephant:

 

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/page.asp?id=656 <= B&O announcement/description/etc

http://ikatu.com/en/rnd/mlgw <= these guys say they built it for B&O, 2 x end user videos on this page

http://vimeo.com/7932602 <=an indepth presentation by an Ikatu engineer

thanks for the links ,especially the last one , alot of usefull information.

Ehlerz:

Well, without knowing the Beo6 specs yes, i have to agree with you. The point is and has always been, that the B&O engineers simply has to be +55 year old guys not knowing what is happening outside Struer. I think adding HDMI ports just about 2 years ago(I seem to remember) tells the story. At the moment they are struggeling with faulty products and instead of focusing on this, they introduce a 1000£ ipod dock..... Oh yes, and a BS5 encore rumored to be WITHOUT masterlink...so basicly an 3.000£ ipod, just without the touchscreen.

You've jumped to conclusions about the functionality of the BeoSound 5 Encore - wait until it's out, and in use. Remember, the BeoSound 5 didn't actually have any sort of linking capability to start off with...

Ehlerz:

I fail to understand their R&D department, i mean where do they do their research? I do not need a 3D B&O screen or OLED etc. However what i do need, is userfriendly products with WOW factor as B&O used to be.

Unfortunately, for most people, B&O's TVs will fail to 'wow' if they're the only sets on the market without 3D capability. This is a route they'll have to go down - simple market forces, or else they'd go under. I don't need/want 3D any more than you do (I hate it personally - gives me headaches). HD was the same at first - unnecessary in many ways as the picture off a BeoVision 5 was already absolutely fantastic without HD capability.

Ehlerz:

Not "Hey look at my brand new 100% customizable remotecontrol that can be customized by just taking it to your B&O dealer and paying him to hook it up to a computer" Why and how on earth did they come to the conclusion that this was the right way of introcuding it? And what about SW updates? B&O I think by now, we can fairly conclude that the internet is here to stay, so instead of sending a dealer to update every single sold tv 5 times a year, how about adapting online  user update possibillities onwards?

B&O can't keep expecting it's customers to use a remote control which is essentially a 17 year old design (the Beo 4), even if it is a fantastic remote. Such a major transition to completely online software updates is something I would imaging B&O is working on - and from the look of things, not rushing into it (which is a good thing).

Ehlerz:

I know there is somekind of Analog/digital overlapping fase where everything has to be reinvented at the same time as it has to be backwards compatible. However, please dont let it be 20 years.

B&O have always done things slowly - which is usually a good thing (although I agree with you R.E. the inclusion of HDMI sockets on some of their TVs, and I still have certain reservations on that topic which I shall not go into). There's nothing worse than rushing into a technology (especially such a major change as 'online-updateable TVs') and getting it wrong, that will solve fewer issues than it creates unless they get it right straight away...

Alex:

B&O can't keep expecting it's customers to use a remote control which is essentially a 17 year old design (the Beo 4), even if it is a fantastic remote. Such a major transition to completely online software updates is something I would imaging B&O is working on - and from the look of things, not rushing into it (which is a good thing).

 

Yes they can! And they should! For the majority of the time, the Beo4 (and indeed Beolink 1000 !) are fine. The Beo5 is simply not as user friendly for most control issues. However I agree that they need a 2 way touch screen remote for browsing music - the iPhone already does this very well - all it lacks is the ability to alter other parameters,  the system volume and source, necessitating a second remote, an anathema to all right thinking B&O users. However it would seem to go from my present system using two remotes, I will need to purchase a lot more hardware and get no improvement in sound. Not sure this is for me.

Gosh are even B&O remotes now compared to Apple products!! Thats bizarre to me!!

And to me! I´m Apple fan too but can´t see the point of comparing everything with Apple. Beo6 sounds like a nice product I will use with my BS5. I could use my Beo5, I find a nice product too, in my bedroom.

The Beo4, despite its age, is still better than anything from anyone else. Just picking up any other remote does not feel the same and is nowhere near as intuitive.

Why don't they just redo the Beo5 so that 1) it's a universal remote that works with all your B&O stuff and all your non-B&O stuff and 2) you can update it yourself?  So basically a Logitech Harmony that doesn't look like a cheap plastic toy.

They'd sell like hotcakes.

BenSA:

Gosh are even B&O remotes now compared to Apple products!! Thats bizarre to me!!

It's another form of Godwin's Law for B&O threads.  The first was "any thread about speakers on a budget or comparing any two speakers (like BL4000 vs BL6000) will eventually have someone recommeding the Beolab5" and the second is "any B&O product will eventually be compared to an Apple product, whether it's relevant or not."  Usually, I'm guilty of the second one.

As you can see, even B&O itself follows your first corollary:

http://media2.worldcarfans.com/2005/7/medium/2050708.007.1M.jpg

As to the second one, it used to be that nothing could be compared to B&O, those were the days, eh?

There is a lot of truth in what you are saying here. Hence, the change of management.

The biggest concern seems to be a lack of outright vision. I mean, they are now sort of waiting for technology to be in the market for about 3-4 years, then it's a 'yeah, that could be a good idea' type of mentality. Then someone finally fumbles around, finds the balls and goes for it. Usually it's then so old, people are imediately bored with it.

A wee while ago, the company used to produce fine technology - Avants / BC9000/9500, AV9000, you know, all the really iconic designs that captured people eye and imagination and people went WOW!  Now it's the reverse, its a oh yeah, its pretty damn expensive type of scenario. Not even a wow, not even a muffled wow - BV8 (Nice telly, but a bit of a bore - yet if they dressed it up with some colour or something, it might actually be polarising to some degree - you know BV5 in orange scenario, but as wild as they get is white these days)

It seems Bang is run by accountants nowadays, boring old duffers that read numbers. They should work at Toyota.

Just my 5p. Bring back the team with the WOW! I want to buy stuff from them! Im sick to death of Apple - they should take a whopping great bite out of them.

It's an interesting interpretation because that was not the mood at the dealer conference. I think many were impressed (I certainly was) at how "vision based" the conference was. In the past, these meetings had tended to focus on individual products and filling gaps in the lineup. This year B&O put forward a concise vision of what our brand should offer our clients in lifestyle terms as well as technological terms. 

I think that there are already solutions on the market that showcase where we're headed (the video matrix, the mlgw, etc), but it will take some time for our solutions to be as well known and understood as BeoSound 9000s and BeoVision Avants. 

I think most of us are aware of the Beoliving strategy, I mean it is there for years.

I think for Europe there is quite a few customers that pick up B&O outside the "Beoliving" segment. I know this is not the market that you are catering to but overall I am sure it is big business.

I believe that for many of these customers the latest and greatest still doesn't matter that much. Obviously they are not vocal here. What matters is that the products work, simple without annoyance and this is where in my opinion B&O has lost track a little.

Make complex things simple. 

TripEnglish:

It's an interesting interpretation because that was not the mood at the dealer conference. I think many were impressed (I certainly was) at how "vision based" the conference was. In the past, these meetings had tended to focus on individual products and filling gaps in the lineup. This year B&O put forward a concise vision of what our brand should offer our clients in lifestyle terms as well as technological terms. 

I think that there are already solutions on the market that showcase where we're headed (the video matrix, the mlgw, etc), but it will take some time for our solutions to be as well known and understood as BeoSound 9000s and BeoVision Avants. 

Very interesting analysis Trip, could you please elaborate a little more about it.

Thanks

jk1002:

I think most of us are aware of the Beoliving strategy, I mean it is there for years.

I think for Europe there is quite a few customers that pick up B&O outside the "Beoliving" segment. I know this is not the market that you are catering to but overall I am sure it is big business.

I believe that for many of these customers the latest and greatest still doesn't matter that much. Obviously they are not vocal here. What matters is that the products work, simple without annoyance and this is where in my opinion B&O has lost track a little.

Make complex things simple. 

While BeoLiving is part of it, it's not the full thrust of the idea going forward. I would say that the new products and the strategy they're part of allow for more advantages even when smaller systems or even single devices are purchased. 

I think that most would agree that there's no such thing as an unconnected device these days, whether it be to other devices or to network services. What I saw coming down the pike embraces the connectedness of electronic devices instead of ignoring/shying away from it. So in some ways we're talking more microcosmic than a BeoLiving home with all its systems linked together. In a few other ways, we're talking much bigger (-;

Beofan2:

And to me! I´m Apple fan too but can´t see the point of comparing everything with Apple. Beo6 sounds like a nice product I will use with my BS5. I could use my Beo5, I find a nice product too, in my bedroom.

Thanks for commenting on the thread. I had not meant to compare Apple with B&O. The thread was arguing for B&O to develop software and a module that works with the more commonly used devices in our homes.

Whilst I agree with Trip that it would be 'smart' for B&O to own and develop a complete vertically integrated stack, they have been unable to prove in recent years their ability to develop capable small hardware (to the sophistication that HTC for example is able to.) And the software has been truly appalling.

The simple solution in my eyes would be for them to outsource the development to an Android and Apple developer, maybe buy-in some hardware from HTC or Samsung (like they did with the handsets) and then put it in a B&O case. Frankly the BS5/BM5 is no different - just the wrong technology choices.

But imagine a B&O remote with a 5" screen (like a Dell Streak) that was connected to the web as well as offering two-way support. It would finally be a remote worthy of the brand. Instead you've got Logitech offering remotes with little imagination, that offer greater integration, simplicity and functionality for 1/5th of the price. The Beo5 is a shocker.

I think there is an aspect to your suggestion that is correct: i.e. luring talent in to work on software design. This is what all companies do and, while Struer isn't exactly a tropical paradise, it shouldn't be too hard to get a few people to stick around.

Well,

I just had my Beovision 10 installed and my Beo5 programmed by the installer. It took them a little more than one hour in program it to my specifications, very customized with logos, even lutron radiora 2 and 3rd party products. I didn't know what to expect but after a couple of days of use it I really like the beo 5 very much (except that is a finger prints magnet).

I have a friend who bought a Logitech (the higher end model) a month ago and it just look like a cheap toy not to mention that he is still trying to make everything work as he want.

I mean, do we really know what we have here with B&O?. This guys are pioneers. The stainless steel with very high quality black plastic that is so in vogue was implemented (or invented) by B&O many years ago, along with the touch screen, bottonless interface, non boxy loudspeakers, whell control (ala ipod), etc.

Some of the most beautiful and well designed A/V products in the world are B&O. Just to name a few in the current line: beotime, beocom 5, beosound 9000, beosound 5, beolabs (all of them), beocenter 2 (perfect if it had hdmi and bluray), beo 4 and 5, beovision (all of them). There is simply NOTHING similar out there for any price.

BeoFab, 

I appreciate your perspective. I agree that the Beo5 is the best programmable remote on the market both in capabilities and overall design. I appreciate that reasonable people can differ, especially on style which is as definitive as a universal favorite ice cream flavor, but it's tough to match the materials and elegance (the way it wakes up with your touch, etc.). 

TripEnglish:

This year B&O put forward a concise vision of what our brand should offer our clients in lifestyle terms as well as technological terms. 

I am glad to hear that !

TripEnglish:

it will take some time for our solutions to be as well known and understood as BeoSound 9000s and BeoVision Avants

that is the challenge

how did they communicate the vision with out products ?

elephant:

how did they communicate the vision with out products ?

It was actually very elaborate! They play acted "a day in the life of a B&O owner" with narration and a real stage. They included existing products, new products, and future products, but they spoke conceptually about how things fit together, how media moves from device to device, room to room, etc. and the expectations of the overall interface.

There are a few things that are better left out of the discussion at this point, but in the coming few years we are going to be rolling out the sort of eco-system that many here have been looking for. I don't know if I've mentioned it elsewhere, but one of the other dealers put it very concisely: "This is the first time in years that the products are actually as cool as they look."