Dallas Morning News

“Today there are 1.9 million homes with energy management networks” nationwide, said Bill Ablondi of Parks Associates, a Dallas market research company. “We are entering a period of pervasive growth. … We estimate there will be 16.2 million by 2015.”

Parks Associates hosted the Smart Energy Summit in Austin last week. It focused on ways to find customers for such services. The three-day affair showed enthusiasm is high among corporations and entrepreneurs, who sense an emerging ...read more

With Apple widely believed to have sold more than 10 million iPads through the holiday quarter, other companies are now simply battling for second place.

"The race is on to cut into Apple's huge lead with the iPad among all the major manufacturers," said Kurt Scherf, principal analyst with Dallas-based market research firm Parks Associates.

"It's a huge obstacle to overcome."

But Scherf summed up 3-D's performance in the retail market so far in just two words: "Epic ...read more

San Diego-based Qualcomm announced that it would be shutting down its subsidiary, FLO TV, in March 2011, freeing up the spectrum that AT&T agreed to purchase. AT&T and Qualcomm expect to close the sale in the second half of 2011.

No wireless company in the world is close to offering that sort of performance, but that hasn't stopped carriers from branding their next-gen networks as 4G.

"The carriers won't backtrack on their marketing efforts," said Harry Wang, director of mobile and health research at Dallas-based research firm Parks Associates. "They do want to confuse you a little bit."

Wang at Parks Associates said video will be the most obvious beneficiary of 4G speeds.

"Right now, you try stream ...read more

In July, Dallas-based AT&T reached a last-minute deal with Rainbow Media to continue carrying AMC and other Rainbow channels.

"The problem is, it's not going to stop after this year," said Kurt Scherf, principal analyst in Dallas with research firm Parks Associates. "It's Cablevision and Dish this year, and it's just going to be a revolving cycle and get more and more contentious."

These disputes aren't always resolved before the viewer gets hurt.

Scherf at Parks Associates ...read more

In August, Dallas-based research firm Parks Associates surveyed more than 500 Americans who owned an iPad or planned to buy one soon. More than one-third said Apple's tablet had caused them to delay or cancel plans to buy a laptop.

But tablets probably aren't going to render laptops extinct, said Harry Wang, Parks Associates' director of mobile and health research.

"The tablet would definitely cannibalize sales of netbooks and laptops," he said, noting that many desktop PC ow ...read more

While almost every other piece of the consumer electronics business has gotten wired and then wireless over the last 10 years, home security systems have remained stubbornly low-tech.

"The security industry is looking toward high-tech," said Tricia Parks, chief executive of Dallas-based research firm Parks Associates.

Parks Associates found in a report earlier this year that the percentage of U.S. households with security monitoring has declined from nearly 19 percent in 2007 ...read more

While other tech companies are attempting similar assaults, the $99 Apple TV set-top box coming out later this month is the most high-profile effort yet to topple the traditional cable, satellite and telecom TV service providers.

"The $99 price point definitely puts Apple TV into the mass-market category, based purely on price," said Kurt Scherf, principal analyst with Dallas-based Parks Associates.

"The only question will be whether 99 [cents] will be too much for consumers ...read more