Microsoft’s M-Home is impressive, but won’t catch on yet.
Despite the new 10-foot interface giving the impression that the device is a home entertainment system, behind Microsoft’s M-Home setup beats the heart of a regular PC and MCE just isn’t quite ready for the British consumer. Dell, the UK’s third largest supplier of PCs to the consumer market, would appear to concur with this, as the company still does not offer a model for the UK market.
Microsoft is clearly trying very hard to turn Windows XP into something we would all happily hook-up to our TVs (this is the company’s third attempt), but there are still several barriers getting in the way:
Firstly, Sky+, BSkyB’s digital video recorder and satellite receiver, lets the user record and store TV programs, radio shows, and movies and for a lot less than the price of a PC. Equally, Wi-Fi devices are the most commonly returned category of computer equipment in circulation today, and so M-Home is unlikely to become a reality anytime soon until this technology becomes easier to deploy.
Thridly, there is Apple Computer. Microsoft’s nemesis is reported to have 90% market share of the hard disk-based MP3 player market, and around 70% of the digital music download market. However, until Microsoft and Apple sort out their differences, consumers will continue to be confused by the digital media format wars. Also absent from the M-Home was Sony’s PlayStation. If MCE is to take off in the way Microsoft would like, then the company must do more to provide software that brings in devices from other manufacturers.
M-Home did showcase some very nice bits of ancillary kit – flat panel monitors in the bedrooms that looked like mirrors when switched off, wireless security cameras, virtual laser keyboards in the kitchen for use with sticky fingers and perhaps best of all, the wireless digital photo frame for pictures of granny.
Microsoft is nothing if not persistent and it will crack this market given time, perhaps through some variant of Xbox. Whatever format the entertainment system of the future takes, it will definitely not be beige.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
