Business Week of March 8 on pc's Pt. 1
by: Strawboss10 (46/M/AL)
56225 of 56226
COVER STORY What 'Beyond the PC' Means for PC Makers After years of being the
shining star of high-tech products, the personal computer has suddenly become quite
the whipping boy. At the TED9 high-tech gabfest in Monterey, Calif., from Feb. 17 to 20,
for example, pundits such as Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg
and MIT assistant professor Michael Hawley took turns pointing out the PC's many ills,
all but relegating it to the trash-heap of digital history. "It's a product meant for office
drudge work that fell off the back of a truck and landed in consumers' homes," said
Hawley. "It's not fit for my mother to use. It's basically industrial waste."That's harsh
stuff, but consider this: Even some PC makers are getting a bit frustrated with their
product's inherent problems. In fact, by the end of 1999, some pure PC players will have
moved "beyond the PC" themselves. Startup eMachines, for example, plans to unveil a
DVD player/PC hybrid called the eMedia, that's designed to be used in the living room for
E-mail, Web browsing, and game playing on the Internet. Packard Bell NEC Inc. expects
to have an entertainment-based product by yearend as well. And Compaq Computer
Corp. plans to be selling wireless communications devices and set-top boxes in a year's
time.Why break out of the "Wintel" fold now? Because when it comes to generating
profits, the tried and true Microsoft Windows-Intel processor model seems to be running
out of gas -- at least for companies relying heavily on the sub-$1,000 market that now
represents half of U.S. consumer PC sales, according to ZD Market Intelligence. It's not
just that margins are negligible on today's low-end models, where a $500 machine might
return only $40 or so in profit. Given Intel's and Microsoft's near-total control of the
technical standards, there's little PC makers can do to make their products stand out --
or to make easier-to-use machines that would appeal to a broader audience. "We're on
the eve of a revolution in pervasive computing -- and the ease of use of the current PC will
never get to where it needs to be," says Packard Bell NEC Chief Executive Alain Couder.
Indeed, he recently asked his engineers to find a way to remove Windows from the PC
and replace it with a simpler operating system. The response: Not economically feasible. |
