A rapid rate of change is par for the course in the consumer electronics (CE) market. New products and features are released on an almost monthly basis, with vendors and consumers in a flurry to keep up. This begs the question of whether consumers are, in fact, staying abreast of the new features that vendors and manufacturers are racing to deliver. According to a recent report by research house Forrester, they are not. Forrester says that consumer electronics products are becoming so complex that buyers will most certainly become frustrated by attempting to exploit the features they offer. Consumers just can`t keep up.

David Musikanth disagrees. He is director of marketing and corporate sales at national distributor Lightedge, and argues that users are comfortable with consumer electronics despite increases in the number of features. “Everything is moving towards plug and play,” he says, “so consumer devices are becoming easier to use. Bluetooth and wireless used to be crazy concepts. Now they are considered easy and simple to use in the consumer space. If you look at the camera and photography market, most consumers don`t even look at normal analogue cameras anymore, but only at digital.”