Latha Venkatraman

Mumbai , Nov. 13

YOU walk into your hotel room in another city and you are overcome by the desire to listen to some music stored on your home PC. In a world where seamless connectivity will be the order of the day, this desire can very well be fulfilled.

Royal Philips Electronics has embarked on a Connected Planet strategy. In simple terms, the Connected Planet strategy means that a consumer could connect, access and enjoy entertainment, information and services whenever they want; irrespective of the place they are.

However, the main enablers for driving the Connected Planet vision are digital content on PCs, growing broadband penetration and home networking.

The vision, according to Philips, is already a reality. It starts where consumer electronics and personal computing come together. Linking a PC to a TV or a home entertainment system and adding broadband Internet access and wireless streaming are sufficient enough to bring the Connected Planet to a living room.

The PC today is increasingly becoming an important element in people's lives as they access a huge amount of digital content stored on their PCs. The penetration of broadband Internet is also growing at a rapid pace. It provides consumers sufficient bandwidth to access entertainment and other content from the Internet. Besides, consumers are interested in connecting electronics devices together in a home network.

Philips says it is leveraging these trends for its Connected Planet vision with a range of products that offer consumers wireless access to their PC and direct access to the Internet.

The Netherlands-headquartered Royal Philips Electronics had announced an investment of $90 million for the development of products and test bed facilities in Singapore as a part of its Connected Planet strategy.

As a broader initiative, it is also participating in the Connecting the Community pilot project through which it will team up with content and service providers to equip selected households with both wired and wireless broadband and connectivity products.

Philips, which will be focusing on its healthcare business in the years to come, is readying itself to deliver personalised healthcare to the home over broadband. Consumerisation of healthcare is an emerging reality, according to Philips. "We believe e-health services over broadband is one of the driving forces for establishing connected communities where patients are empowered to manage their health more effectively and in the process help healthcare providers control costs," Mr Andreas Wente, President and CEO, Philips Electronics Asia, told visiting journalists at the Philips Asian Media Technology Meet in Singapore recently.

Philips is considering introducing an e-health application in the form of pop-up window that appears on the patient's TV screen with a ringing alarm so that the patient would never miss a medication reminder. This is keeping in mind the fact that elderly patients have the potential to skip or forget the medications they need to consumer periodically.

According to Mr Wente, these personalised healthcare services would not only help people with chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure manage their health more effectively but ultimately help in maintaining a `healthy' digital lifestyle.

For example, it will be possible to deliver weight management or employer health programs through a broadband enabled TV.

To realise its vision of Connected Planet, Philips is developing partnerships with content and broadband suppliers. It has developed partnerships with Yahoo, Andante, iFilm, Musicmatch, Live365.com and Virgin among the content providers; with major telecom companies such as British Telecom, T-Com, KPN, Belgacom, Telecom Italia and Telefonica for broadband.

Seamless connectivity is clearly the buzzword of the future.

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