A handful of Orange County companies are readying for the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January.
“It’s the biggest event of its kind in the world,” said Jake Saila, marketing manager for Anaheim’s ZyXel Communications Inc., the U.S. arm of Taiwanese networking gear maker ZyXel Inc.
“It’s one place where we get to meet all of our potential customers and build awareness, build our brand and get media coverage. It’s a convenient place to meet a whole bunch of people in one spot,” Saila said.
A big theme of the show, just like last year’s, is gadgets and software that put portable PCs at the center of work and entertainment.
A lot of companies are making way for a future where the laptop will be a sort of “wireless hub” that can be hooked up to a digital television or a gaming console, and be used to organize and share music, videos and photos.
“You manage and store your content on the laptop and then shoot it back out to those devices,” said Mark Simons, general manager of the digital products division for Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., the Irvine unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp.
Another big theme: “going green.”
Anaheim’s Targus Inc., which makes cases and accessories for laptops and other portable electronics, is set to display its line of eco-friendly cases.
“That’s a big focus for us this year,” said Al Giazzon, vice president of marketing for Targus.
Some of the local companies set to be at CES include Irvine’s Broadcom Corp.; Irvine’s Linksys, a unit of Cisco Systems Inc.; Irvine chipmaker Microsemi Corp.; Fountain Valley’s D-Link Systems Inc., a unit of Taiwan’s D-Link Corp.; Irvine’s SmartLabs Inc. and Cypress-based Universal Electronics Inc.
The show runs from Jan. 7 to 10.
For more on this story, see the Dec. 31 edition of the Business Journal.
