Digital Desktop Advances

Digital convergence is taking hold on the PC desktop, and solution providers are taking note.

Microsoft last week said it is working with more than 30 new computer makers to supply Media Center PCs,specialty desktops equipped to provide a seamless media and entertainment experience through the software giant's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system.

The move would extend the Media Center PC's reach to France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China and Japan, according to Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. More than 20 vendors,including Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Toshiba and ViewSonic,already offer Media Center PCs in various form factors to customers in the United States, Canada and Korea.

An expanded presence for the Media Center PC opens the door wider for solution providers eyeing the home-networking market, since the platform is designed to integrate a variety of consumer-electronics and computer-related devices.

According to a Microsoft-commissioned survey by research firm Harris Interactive, 69 percent of computer users would like access to their digital music collection from anywhere in their home, while 51 percent would like access to their videos and 51 percent would like access to photos.

The networking boom is pointing many IT players toward the home market, where there's a burgeoning demand for integrated entertainment, said solution providers during a roundtable discussion at the recent D&H Convergence Show in Harrisburg, Pa.

"Consumers are becoming more of a market now than businesses, just because a lot of these people are now considering it a necessity to have a home network," said Nathan Baney, owner of High Tech Hobbies, Mifflintown, Pa. "So it's no longer a luxury. It's definitely turning into a necessity now, especially with all of the entertainment systems."

D&H Convergence Show roundtable participant Jim Crews, president of the Criminal Justice Solutions Division at Swifteagle Enterprises, Harrisburg, said his firm also has seen more interest from home users. "Most of our calls now are coming from consumers as far as the integration of multimedia. That's what we call it. We go back to the old term of a 'multimedia house.' And they want everything to be combined in that multimedia house," Crews said. "One thing that we've been trying to do is design a database that would encompass everything, and then we could just dump it into one system."

Media Center PCs position the desktop computer as a "digital hub," enabling users to integrate digital content,including live television, personal video recording, music, video, DVDs and photos,in one place for easy access and management. Users also can view digital material from anywhere in a room via a remote control.

At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this spring, Microsoft unveiled

a Media Center TV set-top prototype designed to enable Media Center PCs to plug into home networks and project digital content onto televisions and other home-entertainment devices anywhere in a house, no matter where the PC is located. The prototype used ATI Technologies' Xilleon chip.

Tweet

   

More