HP CEO, Carly Fiorina pledged that HP will ensure that their new line of consumer electronics devices put the needs of Big Media companies ahead of the needs of her buyers at her keynote at CES: "Starting this year, we'll strive to build every one of our consumer devices to respect digital rights." The addition of DRM functionality which will limit the ability of users to do what they want with digital content they have paid for on hardware they have also paid for.

I'm really curious how HP believes they will be able to charge a band-name premium for devices and PCs with anti-user "features" and off-shored customer support. If I was an HP shareholder, I'd be really, really curious.

Unless the Big Media companies are susbsidising this initiative in some manner, HP will have to rely on ease of use, customer service, new laws outlawing "white-box" PCs, components and no-name media devices from Asia that aren't laden with anti-customer "features" or customer stupidity to keep their market share.

The keynote didn't mention media company partnerships, HP's ease of use isn't any better than any other "brand-name" PC maker (and worse than many) and what little customer service they still have has all been offshored I guess Carly is putting on her hopes for keeping market share on new legal protections and stupid customers. Why not, it's worked for the telecoms for decades.