Patrice Slupowski, VP, Digital Innovation & Communities, Orange and keynote at CONNECTIONS Europe provides insights on new developments in smart home and entertainment services. Patrice’s keynote address, The Evolution of TV 2013-2020, will be on November 12 at 10:15 AM.
1) What do you feel is the biggest obstacle to growth in entertainment services and/or smart home services?
I still think that User Experience is the biggest issue. In TV the principles of the remote control for instance have been created more than 30 years when the proposition was only around 3 or’ 4 live channels and nothing else. Experience is currently device-centric or content-centric but not enough user-centric.
2) What features should service providers focus on to convince consumers to sign up for new services?
If you think of the way social is now affecting our lives and decisions for e-commerce, travel, etc … we understand clearly that we need a closer implementation of the social network into entertainment : the videos that have been recommended by some of my friends directly on my TV set, the movie I can view in the same timeframe than a friend for 1 extra euro are examples of game changers than can convince consumers to change their consumption patterns and to move from linear to non-linear usages.
3) How is your company helping to excel growth in the connected home in Europe?
We’re working a lot on connected objects and in particular any object helping the home becoming a smarter home. We believe that we may help our customer find the best connected things not only for the service each of them is bringing but also for the data created by those devices. Very often the data coming from this device is private or intimate and our vision is to extend our cloud platform to this type of data and to build a personal cloud that is going to save, not only the files, but also all the bits of the Internet of Things. Security and trust are very important growth factors for this industry.
4) What is one key issue that people can’t stop talking about regarding entertainment or smart home services?
Experience, but too many people in the industry are just complaining about the bad experience, and only a few of them are really trying to change that experience.
