Boston, MA - December 20, 2006 - Sony, Panasonic and Samsung lead the wave of the leading mobile, PC and consumer electronics companies that are targeting the connected home for their next major growth opportunity, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. The report, "Connected Home Leaderboard: A Strategic Assessment of Leading CE, PC and Mobile Companies," assesses the key business challenges facing major technology vendors that intend to lead in the connected digital home market. By contrast, the strategies of leading PC vendors HP and Dell exhibit significant weaknesses, such as limited proprietary technology ownership and inability to penetrate emerging device segments.

"In spite of the tendency of the general media to focus on emerging players from the PC and mobile sectors, our analysis suggests that traditional consumer electronics companies are currently best placed to dominate the emerging digital connected consumer market," comments Peter King, the report's author. "In our view, with their strengths in both Consumer Electronics and mobile markets, Sony and Samsung are best positioned to address emerging connected device segments."

This report suggests that companies, such as Cisco and Motorola, must address important weaknesses if they are to meet their strategic objectives. Specifically, Cisco has yet to demonstrate successful consolidation of its acquisitions, and must continue to strengthen its consumer positioning, particularly in non-US markets. Motorola has also failed to develop significant synergies between its mobile and connected home divisions.

Using a series of business metrics, the report ranks the world's top eleven leading consumer technology vendors, according to their performance in key aspects of marketing, consumer targeting, R&D, technology leadership, channel cooperation and product portfolio.

Apart from Sony, Panasonic and Samsung, the companies analyzed included Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola and Nokia.