Name: Is CES Still Relevant?
Uploaded: 2016-01-07
Duration: 2 min 37 s
Description: Fortune’s Andrew Nusca and Stacey Higginbotham debate.

The 2016 CES is underway and the big question on everyone's minds is, is this still the place to go for tech innovation? Stacey, what do you think? I think no, all I'm seeing at this show so far is big brands piggybacking on ideas that I've seen about two or three years ago from smaller start ups. A perfect example is actually the Sleep Number Bed that I saw last night, it looks a lot like what I've seen from Casper and some of these other companies. Right, right. Look, I have to disagree with you. I think there's been some really interesting ideas here. Faraday Future unveiled its Idea of a future car. It showed off a concept car, but it was you know, again, more ideas than an actual production vehicle. But, it's clearly thinking about new ways. One thing that struck me was a new business model you could co- own a car with other people. You could somehow subscribe To a car, the details of that were a little bit funny to me, but clearly they're trying to think of new ways to go about some of these products and isn't that innovation? Okay, so if we're talking about innovation and product ideas and business model, sure. But CES is about consumer electronic products. And so when we're talking about products, I always think about, CES is a place to go and see all this stuff that's gonna launch this year. Each year. Now, not everything launches and I'm always used to that, but again, this is a show about stuff you can touch. You can see business models anywhere any time. Right, but we can't forget, this is a trade show at the end of the day. The consumer electronics trade show, and so people come here to strike deals. They don't come here and try to sit in a lab and invent the new technologies. we're trying to see the manifestation But they're coming here to strike deals. And, what's been, you know, kind of interesting to me, is watching these companies. Big ones, like Ford, coming together with technology companies to strike deals. That's the stuff that's going to manifest down the line, don't you think? That's true. And, we're going to see a lot of big companies. Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM is on stage. She's going to be announcing big name partnerships with Under Armour, with Medtronics, with all these crazy names. So we are seeing a lot of partnerships, a lot of deals coming out of this show. But again, I come here and I want to see stuff that makes my heart flutter, that makes me get excited about being in tech and So far I haven't seen that just yet. I see a lot of drones, I see a lot of VR, but I already know that that's there, I guess. That's a fair point. For one show that's always innovative, come to fortune. com for more Tech Debate.

Is CES Still Relevant?

Fortune’s Andrew Nusca and Stacey Higginbotham debate.