A lesson in selfishness..........................
techweb.com
September 22, 1997, Issue: 183
Section: End Cap
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DVD's struggles are a lesson in selfishness
By
The continuing struggle to get DVD and its offshoots to market is a study in corporate selfishness. As sales of consumer electronics continue to flounder (with little help from DVD movies) and new DVD-ROM drives and systems stagnate on shelves, what the industry needed most was insightful leaders bold enough to stand up and say, "Enough splintering!"
Instead, the nation's most influential consumer electronics retail executive stood up to say, "I want my share of the pie." And while history shows that Circuit City's Richard Sharp is likely to get his share, the damage he has already done to a fractured industry is uncountable.
Executives at the leading consumer electronics companies are no less guilty. Just getting current DVD products to their current state of market readiness took an effort akin to achieving Middle East peace. Why?
Because so many headstrong individuals or groups of individuals have had their own ideas about where the future was going and which version of it would mean the most financially to each. And while securing the best for your company is what business is all about, in this case it means that the industry suffers collectively.
Until about a month ago, the DVD Forum appeared to be on a path to delivering a standard for DVD-RAM, which promises to be the next great recording technology for video, audio and computer systems. The decision by Sony, Philips and Hewlett-Packard to separate from the group to develop and launch their own incompatible format was about as constructive as another blast in a crowded cafe.
One message to which the industry's leaders appear blind is the one they are sending to consumers. While many potential purchasers may ultimately end up buying some form of new player, a more common reaction in the face of two or three very expensive choices is to take a step back and wait out a buying decision altogether. Retailers will not be faulted for taking similar action. The superiority of any of the technologies won't matter a nickel. Just ask any owner of a Sony Betamax machine.
And while the weight of warring electronics firms and a retailer are most in evidence at the battlegrounds, the subtle influence of the software industry has been no less destructive. Since software ultimately will serve as the razor blades that supply the ongoing profitability of any DVD format, the software titans have tugged at some pretty influential strings. Each nod of endorsement, or lack thereof, has sent the odds-makers scurrying to determine which format now has the best chances of making it to market, and ultimately succeeding.
Unfortunately, at this writing, there appears no clear winner. If anything, all the conflicting stances suggest DVD could easily wind up the great format that never quite made it. We realize that there are real numbers behind each opposing stance, including considerable R&D work and its inherent costs. But it's getting late.
What these disparate interests need is a single authoritative voice to boom out a cold-water message: Consumers are losing interest in the debate. Imagine if the energy spent on splintering were somehow reformed into a single cohesive message, one that clarified rather than clouded the technological promise of DVD. The collective benefit is one that would far surpass visions of the next VCR. -M.H.
Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc.
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