Consumer tech: The biggest winners and losers of 2007
As the holiday season starts up, most major tech companies have laid down all the big cards they intend to play in 2007. Apple won out in personal media players but produced a relative dud in the set-top box category. In gaming, the Wii's surprise hotness is still hot, but no longer that surprising. In DVDs, Blu-ray and HD DVD are locked in a battle for supremacy that's left both starving.
Every year there are winners and losers in the consumer electronics business. However, rarely are they so acutely divided as they appear to be in 2007. Those products deemed winners not only won - they won big. Those that lost tended to lose big too.
Some winners will come as no surprise. Apple continued to dominate the mobile media player business, its iPod brand still a synonym for the entire category. The clear loser in this market was pretty much any company that dared challenge Apple on turf it has owned in an undisputed manner since 2003.
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