14 DAY TRIAL // As each home entertainment solutions' manufacturer is now shipping complex remote controls with their various products, capable of working quite fine across a whole range of devices (as long as they belong to the same series), the demand for universal remote controls has dropped significantly, this being most likely the reason why Philips, one of the best-known names in this particular industry segment, has decided to shut down its entire Pronto division, dedicated to the development of the aforementioned series of products. As CEPro informs us, Philips' been looking for a buyer for its Pronto division ever since last December, but the worsening economic conditions, as well as the poor demand in this particular segment, have prevented them from making a successful sale.
For this reason, the Dutch company has decided to finally cut its losses and announced that “Philips confirms today that it will discontinue the Pronto product line and related activities. “
Of course, that means that quite a lot of employees from the company's division in Leuven, Belgium, will loose their jobs, since we're pretty sure that very few will be willing to move to Asia, where Philips will allegedly relocate the activities pertaining to the Pronto business.
Naturally, this is very good news for some of the other companies involved in the same particular market, segment, such as Logitech, for example, but we're pretty sure that, given the overall direction the home entertainment industry is heading in right now (Google TV, anyone?), the universal remote controls will turn into museum exhibits in just a couple of years' time.
Well, this, of course, is not exactly good news, especially for the fans of Pronto remote controls.
However, it doesn't really come as a surprise, since we're seeing more and more legendary brands being killed off by their owners, simply because their market value has dropped significantly and the economic crisis has hit everyone pretty hard (remember the Technics analog turntables by Panasonic?).