No digital death knell for the PC

Life

1 April 2005

Look at our digital lifestyle section this month and you will see that the PC is evolving and changing shape. What we are witnessing at the moment is not the elimination of a revolutionary design — the IBM-compatible PC — but the diversification of digital technology under its hood into a more extensive range of products.

The PC is still very much alive. Look at the latest figures for the Irish market from research company IDC. Year on year, PC sales in Ireland increased by a solid 11.4 per cent in the second quarter of this year over the same period in 2002.

Change is good

Though not the first of its kind — there had been some earlier moves towards colour deviation — for me it was Acer’s all-black PC launched in 1996 that was the clearest signal yet that we were entering a new era in PC design. After the 1998 arrival of Apple’s jaw-dropping translucent iMac, I was left in no doubt. The home computer has since evolved to a stage where we now have cube PCs that look more at home in the living room alongside the TV, rather than being tucked away in the study or in the bedroom.

Take the Aveio from UK-based company Yres Technology. This cube-shaped PC features a svelte metallic case; underneath its hood is a standard PC architecture with an AMD Athlon XP 2600+ processor on-board, 512Mbyte of memory, an Nvidia graphics card, networking and USB ports — just what you would expect to find in a standard desktop PC. But there are subtle differences that make this device stand out. In terms of what it can actually do, it is more a home entertainment device closer in nature to the Hi-Fi, DVD player or games console than a PC. The Aveio plays DVD movies, music CDs and features support for Dolby 6.1 surround sound. With a TV tuner on-board, it can become your TV, home cinema and PC all in one.

Enter the home entertainment PC

The Aveio is one of a new breed of home entertainment PCs that accentuate the killer applications for home users — video, music, photography and gaming. And home entertainment PCs such as the Aveio come with CD burners, DVD drives, MP3 software and memory card readers to woo the consumer. The marketers hope that their good looks will help swing the deal.

Jim McDonnell, vice president of sales and marketing for HP Personal Systems Group, sees photography and music as the main drivers in the current consumer PC and electronics market. In response to this, his company has already launched a home entertainment PC built around Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Centre operating system. It doesn’t have the smart looks of the Aveio, but be sure that it too will get a facelift before long.

Of course, these new home entertainment PCs are at the centre of a wider movement by PC manufacturers into the home electronics arena. This is set against a background of flat PC sales in some of the larger, more mature markets such as the US, UK and Germany — an environment that demands a fresh approach and for these manufacturers to diversify their product portfolio. The flexibility of digital PC technology, with its support for multimedia applications, has allowed them to enter the home electronic arena against the more traditional players such as Sony, JVC, Philips, Panasonic and Mitsubishi. Whether they will be able to compete with these established brands, only time will tell. Home PC behemoth Gateway is now offering widescreen LCD TVs in the US. Dell has already said that it will definitely begin offering LCD TVs, home cinema projectors and portable digital music players to American consumers before Christmas. A tentative spring launch date has been set for Ireland.

Not just a PC company

HP will do likewise. McDonnell has gone on record to say that his company will probably be entering the TV market very soon. He has also said that these HP TVs will come with integrated DVD and music playback features. HP also has plans for an iPod-style MP3 music player.

Both Dell and HP are following the Apple model of launching a digital music distribution site on the back of the success of the iTunes service. At the online Dell Music Store, consumers will be able to purchase the Dell DJ digital music player and access a music download service with catalogues from all of the major record labels.

So I suppose we will have to stop talking about personal computing now and instead replace it with personal technology. The PC — whether it’s a bedroom-bound beige box or a slim and sexy model for the living room — will remain the hub surrounded by peripheral devices that will allow you to manage, manipulate, transfer, share and enjoy all of your media, whether it’s music, video or digital photos. The PC is still very much alive and it welcomes you to a more diversified digital world.

31/10/2003

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