About This Report

Information technology's role in U.S., German, and Japanese households of the future

This report taps the expertise of SRI Consulting Business Intelligence's (SRIC-BI's) Digital Futures for a look at three different households of the future—one each in the United States, Japan, and Germany. The report examines the family members' information/communications/entertainment needs and behaviors, the electronic equipment and services that they own and use, and how these elements evolve in the 2002–06 time frame. Instead of painting a picture of households that embrace every imaginable new product and service, the authors use SRIC-BI's VALS™ consumer psychographic segmentation system to build a realistic look at which technologies and services are likely to reach mainstream markets in the next four years. The report begins by examining daily life in a hypothetical U.S. family, looking at its activities in 2002, then in 2004, and finally in 2006, along with a profile of the family and the evolution of products and services that the family uses in each of those years. It then provides a similar profile of the Japanese and German families and households and the products and services that they use. The report also presents a brief description of the VALS system that contributed to the analysis.