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Microsoft Updates Version of Windows for Multimedia Computers

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

Oct. 1--Personal computers continued their journey from the office to the living room yesterday, as Microsoft updated a special version of Windows for souped-up multimedia computers designed to be an entertainment hub for television, radio and home movies.

Multimedia PCs were released last year but now more companies have joined in. Dell and Sony will sell PCs with the new version of Windows XP Media Center, joining Gateway, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba, which already offer the PCs.

The PCs will also offer on-demand movies through CinemaNow and Movielink and music using a revived Napster.

TV viewers can review a list of television programs currently playing and click to choose a program, without subscribing to a service to receive the program listings, as is required by products such as TiVo.

"I don't have to get into the car and find something to watch tonight," Kevin Eagan, general manager for Windows eHome division, said at a news conference at the Westin Hotel in Manhattan.

Multimedia PCs also provide traditional functions, including access to the Internet and e-mail, all in a slimmed-down computer.

The slender design of the computer "can bring the PC out of the home office and into the living room," Michael George, chief marketing officer for Dell, said at the news conference.

David Smith, an analyst at Gartner, a technology research company in Stamford, Conn., said regular PCs are too unattractive for a home's entertainment center.

"People don't want to put those ugly beige boxes in their living room," he said. But wide adoption of media PCs faces some roadblocks, he added.

Some of the media PCs are less than $1,000, but regular PCs have fallen below the $500 mark, he said. And the PCs are also slightly less intuitive to use than traditional televisions or stereos, he added.

Over the next year, about a million media center PCs will likely ship worldwide, said Roger Kay, an analyst with IDC, a technology marketing and research firm in Framingham, Mass.

That compares to more than 130 million shipments of regular PCs.

Still, they will likely catch on, Kay said.

"I think the media center is going to be more the norm in the future even if right now the adoption is going to be a little bit slow."

The updated media center PC is another sign that consumer electronics and personal computers are merging, analysts said.

Yesterday's announcement also comes days after Dell leaped into the consumer electronics market, announcing it would offer LCD TVs, home projectors and MP3 players.

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