There is a missing link, we believe, in the press reports surrounding Best Buy’s decision to acquire Napster.

No one yet has linked the new Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE is a consortium of Hollywood studios, retailers and tech companies) to the deal.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Comcast Corp. with with tech giants Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Philips, Toshiba and Verisign have all invested in the undertaking.

Oh, yes...so did Best Buy.

DECE wants a new standard for the transfer and storage of copyrighted digital content that will knock out Apple.

The new DRM aims to let videos purchased at any outlet be played on any device worldwide, under a unified brand and logo. DECE will allow an unlimited number of copies of a video to be created or burned onto a disc.

Nobody knows much about the new DECE yet. You’ll see all this unveil at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Best Buy foresees Napster acting as their own platform for accelerating their growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions. They will leverage existing relationships with the labels, the studios, and the hardware providers.

DECE will (in theory) level the playfield and Napster will allow Best Buy to earn its position in digital music space as it did in selling CDs (a major position in USA.)

Distributor Al-Futtaim is now the first international affiliate in UAE of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) of America.

CEA, a trade organization for 2200 companies in the consumer technology industry in USA, owns and runs CES Las Vegas.Al-Futtaim rolled out an iHOME display for Gulf Region consumer electronics and intelligent home systems during International CES Hometech exhibition, featuring best-in-class products from Panasonic, Toshiba, Sanyo, Aftron and Control 4.

CES Hometech, organised by Messe Frankfurt, was held in Dubai for the second year, but this was the first full year under the auspices of the CES of Las Vegas fame. Al-Futtaim was the largest exhibitor.

Go Al-Futtaim

Inside the ICP@CeBIT pavilion in Reseller Planet at CeBIT, we were surprised to see the stand of Al-Futtaim Electronics.

We recognized Al-Futtaim from their position in the Middle East market where they represent brands like Volvo, Alactel, Toys R Us, Toshiba, Panasonic and more.

A part of the nature of the Middle East market reflects the nature of their dominant trading partners: the factories of Asia. In Korea, they have chaebols and in Japan the zaibatsu. These are generally family owned trading companies that grew into conglomerates with diverse interests.

Al-Futtaim’s growth (more than 70 companies in the group) reminds us of Mitsui Trading and other Asian traders. Today Al-Futtaim has inside its conglomerate, an impressive group of electronics companies. Maybe you recognize the high street retailer, Plug-Ins. Or the pan-MEA product service company, Tech Serve. There’s Panatech, the exclusive Panasonic distie.

On the retail side, there’s IKEA, ACE HARDWARE and Toys R Us in the Al-Futtaim group.

So which company of the group has a stand at CeBIT?

Gouri Shankar represents the Global Trading Division of Al-Futtaim Electronics. GTD sells branded electronics from CE, IT, home appliances and telecom industries.

And when Shankar says “branded,” he really means “big brands.” In CE and home appliances, we’re talking Sharp, Sony, Sanyo, Samsung, LG, Nintendo, Apple and, of course, Panasonic. In mobile phone , the brands are Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung Sony Ericsson and even HTC. For IT, Al-Futtaim sells Intel, Seagate, Toshiba, HP, Acer, Hitachi and Western Digital.

“We sell only branded,” notes Shankar. “We have a responsibility to quality in these three areas [CE/Home appliances, IT, Telecom].”
 
“Although the world is shrinking day by day, our principals are not in every market. And in peak selling season, demand outstrips supply. Product always seems to be in the wrong places at the wrong time. Currency fluctuations are more volatile than years before.”
 
“So we have a lot of customers and vendors in Europe. CeBIT is wonderful to meet everybody at the same time. 2007 was a turbulent year for everyone. Real traders were not at CeBIT and were getting on with business. This year traffic is good and the quality of attendee is up. We’re seeing the type of customer that’s in it for the long haul and not the quick buck.”
 
Check out the Al-Futtaim group…

Global trading at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Ten years ago it seemed like a radical idea: a distributor’s own brand. A house brand. Sure, in those days you had a few odd distributors like Trust that lived by building their brand, but in general the Brand (with a Capital “B”) was still territory occupied solely by Tier 1 vendors who could buy expertise from marketing gurus and big agencies.

Vendors built brands, distributors built channels and route-to-market for those brands, and retailers built traffic and sales. It was a far more, simple world (although we still managed to get confused in it).

Today everybody wants a brand, so much so that you think some laws should be passed requiring vendors to first pass a Brand 101 test. A major trend in high volume retail is to have your own brand, from WalMart to Dixons. Many channel players have launched their own brands, from distributors like ACI in Belgium with iDream to Taiwan companies trying to escape the OEM heat from China’s prolific competition. A few become winners and more will die as losers.

Ingram is a winner and perhaps one that has not been given full recognition yet. They started their brand quietly in the heyday of system builders, when SBs were starving for components. They launched V7 and for years gained experience. More importantly, Ingram Micro has gained a vision of the mega-potential a House Brand could have for a global distributor. They have seen the future and the future is House Brand.