Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

Larry Thomas

Live from CES: L&P’s high-tech bed a hit

Happy day for Starry Night

By Larry Thomas

LAS VEGAS — As he neared the end of his first day as an exhibitor at the Consumer Electronics Show, Mark Quinn was pumped.

Quinn, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Leggett & Platt’s bedding business, couldn’t have been more pleased with reaction to the company’s high-tech Starry Night bed.

“This is not just taking a product to market. It’s putting something on the world stage,” he said. “There are 22,000 new products here … and the feedback we’ve received on this one has been incredible.”

Quinn already has talked to reporters from CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Business Week and Forbes, and that is generating considerable buzz for the bed.

Starry Night is a key part of an exhibit called NextGen Home that shows how virtually every function in the home — from lowering the blinds to adjusting the oven temperature — can be integrated using a new software package called Lifeware.

 “The fact that we are here at CES says a lot about where we are headed as a company,” said Quinn. “We want to be seen as the innovation leader in our business.”

He said the new bed, whose features include dual programmable temperature controls, an iPod docking station and Internet connectivity, also will be on display in the Fashion Bed Group showroom the first two days of the upcoming Las Vegas furniture market.

                                                           ******************

If you like the thin profile of most flat-screen televisions, then you’ll love several of the newest LCD and plasma models that are being unveiled here.

LG Electronics has a new 42-inch LCD that is only 1.7 inches thick, while Samsung and Panasonic have 52- and 50-inch versions that are just one inch thick.

Not to be outdone, Sharp is showing off several prototype LCD televisions that are less than one inch thick — 20 millimeters to 35 millimeters to be exact.

                                                            *****************

Today, I’m planning to visit the World Market Center in the morning to check out some of the 20 showrooms that are open there.

Part of my afternoon will be spent covering a panel discussion starring some heavyweight retail executives, including the CEOs of Circuit City and Best Buy and the general merchandise manager for consumer electronics at Target. Should be a great discussion!