Sales numbers for 2007 and of the first quarter of 2008 show that non-connected PMP sales are in decline, not only for Archos but for the whole market. And that connected PMPs have a huge potential connected to the Internet with WiFi at home and using 3G outside of the home.

This could mean that Archos will try to focus on a smaller range of products for the Gen6 instead of having so many different products on the market at the same time.

Archos has learnt stuff about what type of storage options people like best and that are easiest to sell in large quantities, so my understanding of what Archos CEO Henri Crohas said on the 22nd April investors and press meeting in Paris and what has been relayed now by english speaking media, is that Archos is going to focus on Internet connected PMPs and probably stop making 105, 204, 405, 604 and 504 type Mp3 and PMP players unless there is some Internet connectivity built into them.

This is already the trend shown by Archos between the Gen4 and the Gen5 range, with most of the Gen4 sales being non-connected PMPs 604 and 504 and not the 604 WiFi, and with the Gen5 all 4,3″ and 7″ PMPs released by Archos 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi all had WiFi Internet connectivity built-in and the non-connected 405 and 105 sold much lower volumes even though their prices are lower (towards $99 today for a 405 and towards $60 for a 105).

So this means Archos is focusing more on it’s core competencies going forward, and which really differentiates it the most from it’s main competitors and which one can see that there is a greatest potential in the coming months with the Google Android, iPhone 3G, MIDs and Netbooks coming out and generating so much buzz on blogs such as Engadget and Gizmodo.

Source: Archos in major product strategy switch

June 11, 2008 – FRENCH portable media player Archos is switching its product strategy to focus on broadband-capable Internet tablets following disappointing results last year with its traditional line of portable media players (PMPs).

At a recent meeting with investors in Paris the French company, which supplies players to handheld IFE specialist the IFE Company and has been associated with at least one other handheld provider, reported 2007 revenues of Eur102 million, down sharply from the previous year’s Eur124 million and well short of a break-even of Eur115 million.

Chief executive Henri Crohas said that the company had pulled out of MP3 music players in the face of declining demand and that a slow production ramp-up for the Archos 605 and 705 Generation 5 portable media players had left it short of stock to meet high demand in the critical Christmas selling season.

On the positive side, Crohas said, was the completion of work to position the Generation 5 range as WiFi-capable PMPs allowing users to obtain new content via mobile Internet. “Our Generation 5 is now positioned as the sole competition for Apple’s iPod Touch,” he said.

The company started this year 2008 with Eur48 million of equity and Eur15 million net cash, and is aiming for revenues of Eur25 million in the first quarter and a total of Eur130 million for the year.

Describing current industry trends, Crohas said that the market for conventional non-connected MP3/MP4 players had grown only slowly in 2007 and was down fully 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year. He contrasted this with the prospects for connectivity-capable PMPs, saying that he expected strong growth on the back of the increasing availability of mobile Internet via WiFi in homes and offices and 3G cellular outside.

The beginnings of pervasive mobile Internet access have pointed the way for Archos’ next wave of product development. Crohas highlighted the failure of stripped-down Websites designed to run on cellphone screens as a means of promoting the development of mobile Internet access. “There’s only one Internet,” he said. “And its pages are all 800-1,000 pixels wide. That means a minimum resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and a minimum screen size of 5in - 4.3in is a compromise and 3in is just too small.”

Archos’ response will be a range of mobile Internet tablets featuring a 5in screen, ultra-low-power X86 processors [Charbax notes that this X86 Archos product for next year is not confirmed by Archos but probably just one way that the journalist understood Henri Crohas keynote on the 22nd of April. Henri Crohas announced that X86 based products are entering the market, and that those products looked like Archos products from far away and can in some ways do the same things. I didn't hear it as an announcement from Archos that they would release an X86 based product next year.] and the ability to run standard PC applications – including a browser, email, Web 2.0 and 3.0, widgets and plug-ins – from next year. As well as Internet access, the new devices will support Web radio and TV, mobile TV delivered by DVB-T terrestrial broadcast technology, and the rental and purchase of content from the company’s content portal and Paramount-based Media Club.

Last year Archos’ output comprised Generation 5 non-WiFi PMPs (15 per cent), Generation 5 with WiFi (40 per cent) and Generation 4 non-WiFi (45 per cent). Crohas expects the mix to evolve to include basic mobile Internet tablets (60 per cent) and mobile Internet tablets with 3G+ connectivity (25 per cent) by the end of next year.

It seems Blockbuster thinks that the Archos and CPFK Moovyplay system is a good thing with a huge potential. So now that Blockbuster is taking over Circuit City for $1 billion, they are planning their huge brick and mortar transition to VOD using digital video technology. Archos and CPFK seem to have developped the best solution in the world and it’s said to be well patented.

Although this version of the in-store movie download system is said to be developped by NCR Corp, which may or may not be in anyways involved with french CPFK group in developping this solution. The Blockbuster CEO noted that Blockbuster plans to rely on third-party partners to minimize the company’s investment in these initiatives.

The Blockbuster CEO says the plan is to charge approximately $10 per month (it could be a Netflix-type unlimited movies subscription), and people would receive the Archos for free in that deal. Subscriptions is definitely a plan here. So imagine this, users paying $10 or $20 per month for a certain “Blockbuster Unlimited” movies deal, the $10 per month deal might not include new releases (each new release might cost an additionnal $2 or so) while the $20 subscription would include all movies among up to tens of thousands of titles. And with that 1 or 2-year subscription deal, people would be getting for example an Archos 605 WiFi 30GB or an Archos Moovyplay 40GB/80GB for free.

So the deal here is that this would replace the DVD, Blockbuster can fit tens of thousands of movies on a touch-screen kiosk that takes up just a couple of square feet. Download times connecting the Archos to that kiosk is about 30 seconds per movie, which makes it faster then most broadband download connections and especially faster then BitTorrent piracy. Also, up to hundreds of movies can be loaded on the Archos for free and only a subscription would need to be paid each month for the “Unlimited Blockbuster” movie kiosk service, and without the subscription, the movie rental payment can be made remotely over WiFi or using an SMS code at home. Also, this system could seamlessly also begin to work directly over the Internet for the users who have fast enough broadband connection at home for streaming the movies.

The kiosk prototype will begin testing within the next three weeks in Dallas, Texas, download time for movies will be about 30 seconds.

You can discuss this in the forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?t=15385

Dish Networks is working with Alcatel-Lucent to test the DVB-SH standard on its 700mhz spectrum in the USA. This evaluation will take place in DISH Network’s laboratories in Atlanta, Ga. from May to August 2008.

“As is our history, DISH Network continues to explore new, cutting-edge technology for consumer applications,” said Nolan Daines, senior vice president of Strategic Initiatives for DISH Network. “Considering the global momentum of DVB-SH, we decided that performing a critical analysis of this new open standard was the right thing to do for DISH Network. We look forward to working in tandem with Alcatel-Lucent during this testing phase.”

“DVB-SH is today the most powerful mobile broadcast open standard leveraging the DVB-H ecosystem and enabling an efficient delivery of TV services to all mobile devices ranging from handsets to Personal Multimedia Players and in-car units,” added Olivier Coste, Chairman of Alcatel-Lucent’s mobile broadcast activities. “This is why Alcatel-Lucent is committed to the success of DISH Network’s DVB-SH tests in the U.S., and, more than ever, to the expansion of the DVB-SH ecosystem worldwide.”

Source: alcatel-lucent.com, via Engadget

Archos is one of the hardware partners to Alcatel-Lucent in developping those PMPs that will be able to receive the DVB-SH signals. You can see my interview with an Alcatel-Lucent representative about the DVB-SH technology at: http://techvideoblog.com/ifa/alcatel-lucent-dvb-sh/

Dish Networks invested $10 million dollars in Archos in 2005 and today owns about 25% of Archos shares.

Read more speculation on Dish Networks and Archos using DVB-SH at: http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/04/25/mobile-services-dish-tech-wire-cx_ew_0425dish.html

You can download it here: http://www.archos.com/corporate/company/Presentation_ARCHOS_220408.pdf

Thanks to ArchosLounge.net

According to the financial document that Archos released this week, SFR is the only big telecom company to have announced the HSDPA partnership to cover France thus far, but Archos says they are counting on releasing the HSDPA devices with at least two other HSDPA telecom providers before the end of the year.

Who might those other two telecom partners be? Does Archos have advanced talks with someone in the USA thus far? I think it would probably be one of the US telecoms that is not ATT which has this exclusive deal with Apple for the iPhone. So I would think any of Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile could potentially be a good telecom partner to launch the HSDPA device in the USA at attractive prices. Especially, as far as I know, in the USA you have to have an agreement with the telecom provider to even be allowed to use their HSDPA network, in the USA, you cannot have a product and put any HSDPA SIM card in it for it to work.

How about telecoms to cover other countries in Europe? Does Archos have advanced discussions going on with a german telecom? How will it connect in the UK? I would say that an agreement with Hutchinson Whampoa would be a good way to cover the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong and Australia in one device distribution and content monetization agreement with Three. Something could go on with telefonica for Spain?

In any ways, I hope that Archos can quickly get nice agreements in place with HSDPA providers to cover every country in the world that has got HSDPA networks. Or at least that any HSDPA SIM card could be used in the remaining countries where there wouldn’t be a distribution agreement in place yet at the initial release of the HSDPA products.

Echostar owns around 20% of Archos stock, and they have just succeeded in buying a nearly national coverage of licences to deploy wireless broadband in the USA on the 700MHZ spectrum. Not only does that mean that Echostar can now deploy their own wireless broadband network to distribute video-on-demand directly to their set-top-boxes without being dependent on the established internet service providers, it also means Echostar can ask Archos to build for them a portable video player that will stream video directly over their 700Mhz WiMax networks.

They could also use their spectrum to build WiFi and WiMax mesh networks, thus blanketing the whole USA relativelty cheaply and rapidly with their own wireless broadband network. So customers who agree to install a little box outdoors next to their Dish Networks satellite dish, could then hookup to the central WiMax broadcaster and republish that signal to the whole nabourhood as Mesh networking of both the 700mhz signal and normal WiFi. Customers who would agree to install this free box could thus get a rebate on their Dish Network and wireless broadband subscription fees.

Another strategy could be for Echostar to use the established ADSL, Cable and Fiber networks that people already have gotten at home through established internet service providers and re-publish that Internet connection through the Ethernet plug of the set-top-box out to the nabourhood using the 700Mhz spectrum and WiFi. This way Echostar would basically just need to distribute set-top-boxes to cover a whole country with free wireless broadband. Other ISPs might complain that Echostar would be using their bandwidth, but that is the way Fon works today with a million users worldwide sharing their Internet connection using WiFi, and that way of doing wireless networking deployments might be approved and regulated into law by the politicians. As a means to lower the cost of deploying better and cheaper wireless broadband, supporting network neutrality which means ISPs should not be allowed to throttle or restrict in any ways how consumers use their internet connection.

Echostar should build their 700Mhz network in cooperation with Google, so that devices to use that 700Mhz spectrum also work in the unlicenced spectrum that Google is suggesting the FCC should be used for free wireless broadband.

Sources: Echostar’s 700Mhz spectrum, Google’s unlicenced spectrum proposition

If you are in the USA or Canada and considering buying an Archos for as cheap as possible, you might consider getting one refurbished at the official store. The prices are really good, and a refurbished product is most probably as good as new and comes with a 6 months warranty.

Here’s a selection of some of the best refurbished Archos you can get:

Refurbished Archos 605 - 30GB: $225 - product information
Refurbished Archos 605 - 80GB: $265 - product information
Refurbished Archos 605 - 160GB: $325 - product information

Refurbished Archos DVR Station - Gen 5: $55 - product information

Refurbished Archos 404 Camcorder 30GB: $165 - product information
Refurbished Archos 404 30GB: $145 - product information

Refurbished Archos AV500 30 GB: $145 - product information

Refurbished Archos Gmini 402: $125 - product information

Refurbished Archos 104 6GB: $75 - product information

Thanks to jbmm.fr for the tip.

I’m on the ArchosLounge.net ArchosCast episode 12 available at: http://www.archoslounge.net/L-emission-qui-reveille-ton-Archos,7882.html

With Yves, Thocan, iMike and N@styatak we talk about the latest Archos news, rumors, HSDPA, HD, open-source SDK possibillity, Flash support and more.

But it’s in French.

Sometime soon we should organize an English speaking Archos podcast on this site.

Imagine having ubiquituous wireless broadband connection to your Archos, streaming videos from anywhere not only on WiFi hotspots, integrated Voice-over-IP, an open applications platform (perhaps with some Google Android compatibillity), remote personal video recorder program guide control and ArchosLink synchronisation, instant global access to all the music of the world streaming through a service like unlimited Last.fm (currently available ad-supported in the USA, UK and Germany), full ubiquituous access to the Archos Content Portal, to your personal collection of files stored on your personal server or on a p2p file storage service such as http://wua.la.

This is not to be available yet, and Archos doesn’t seem to have a device they want to show yet. But the deal is now signed with the first HSDPA 3G+ provider to cover all Archos HSDPA consumers in France. HSDPA 3G+ providers in other countries could come next: Three? Deutshe Telekom? Telefonica? Swisscom? Vodafone?.. Consider the partner could appeal to HSDPA providers who did not sign with Apple yet, who would be seeking a better hardware and business model alternative…

So far, the official date is “before the end of 2008″. This could mean that the product starts to be unveiled soon, and released later, so the unveiling could perhaps come a bit before an eventual 3G iPhone release, by the time Google Android, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia and Nokia’s successor to the N810 are going to be released later this year.

A HSDPA Dock for the Gen 5 is not mentionned by Archos so far, but it would be nice, so that Gen 5 owners can get access to the ubiquituous multimedia in the pocket experience. VOIP was not mentionned eigther, and eventual subsidy of the hardware cost for content and data service subscriptions can only be assumed will be part of this deal.

Archos has not yet released many of the features of the Archos Gen 5 wishlist: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?t=5046. Such promised features as the HD Plugin, Webradios and the FM Remote Control are still expected by the Archos Gen 5 Fans. And an open SDK policy by Archos as a reaction to the hacking activity would be a nice move by Archos if they have got the ressources to bring all these things to the already released product generations. So we are still waiting for official announcements and actions by Archos on these features.

Sources: http://www.lesmobiles.com/actualite/3413-sfr-signe-un-accord-de-partenariat-avec-archos.html

http://www.tekit.fr/breve-sfr-et-archos-partenaires,4074.html

You can discuss about the Archos TV+ in the forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewforum.php?f=27

Posted by http://www.unwiredshow.tv/2008/02/11/50-archos-tv-plus-launch/