Dell: Demand for PC-TVs won't materialize
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Michael Dell is no fan of computers that double as television sets, an idea aggressively promoted by high-tech rival Compaq Computer Corp.
Dell, founder and chief executive of Dell Computer Corp., the world's biggest direct seller of personal computers, said Thursday that the two activities -- TV viewing and computing -- are too different to be combined in one room of the home.
''What it means is you get a really bad personal computer and a not-so-good TV,'' Dell said at a technology conference for the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. ''A lot of the PC-TVs don't have the resolution.''
By the year 2006, consumers will have to replace or convert their existing analog TV sets to receive signals from broadcasters sending cinema-quality digital television, which can also operate as computers.
Compaq has used that deadline to actively pursue developing a PC-TV market, last year unveiling a combination ''PC Theatre'' with Thomson Consumer Electronics Co. The Houston-based company says it sees PC-TVs as a way to spread computer wares into the living room.
Indeed, many in the computer industry dream of turning desktop machines into full-fledged entertainment systems, with users doing far more than just word processing, games and other basic applications.
But Dell said if he personally came home and needed to send electronic mail and his children were watching an animated film on the PC-TV, he'd still wind up needing a computer outside the living room.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Computer, which deploys a direct sales force and does nearly $13 billion in business, hasn't found a market for the product.
''Will there be a specialized market? Sure,'' Dell said about PC-TVs. ''There's a percentage of the population that will buy just about anything.''
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