The Bottom Line
December 16, 2003
Entertainment PC?

Jon Peddie thinks that the PC is finally ready for the family den.


The EPC is clearly going to be the product of the holidays, and it's safe to say that 2004 will be the year of the Entertainment PC—you can tell your grandchildren you were there when it happened.

I'm a late adopter when it comes to most technology, particularly when it has to do with entertainment. So don't necessarily go by me. But I think that in 2004 we will see continued segregation between what goes in the office and what goes in the den.

If you believe that 2004 is the year of the entertainment PC, then you might have believed that he year of the Picturephone was going to be...what...1965?

I think that we will see entertainment PC's come in to full flower when everybody has finally finished copying their old VHS tapes onto DVD's. When you're finally ready to throw out the old VCR, you will be ready to consider an entertainment PC. I think that day is several years out for most people.

Posted by Arnold at 8:09 PM | Email this entry | Category: future technology and growth
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I agree that most of us are in no hurry to throw away our vcr tapes. We will wait before jumping on the band wagon. This new product sounds more appropriate for a younger person who can start relatively fresh.

Posted by David Thomson on December 17, 2003 05:15 PM | Permalink to Comment

I think there is a real trend toward "computerizing" the TV, but I agree with you that the design points for office and den will remain mostly separate for a long time. As we have come to depend on the office PC for certain functions like email and home accounting my wife has become less tolerant of its being unavailable for any reason. And in my experience, reliability of a Windows system varies as (1/n-squared), where n is the number of different pieces of software you have installed.

Posted by Hunter McDaniel on December 18, 2003 11:52 AM | Permalink to Comment

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