Having worked at Microsoft and having spent a lot of time working with a number of different MS divisions and departments (including WebTV and MSTV), I can tell you that the company execs generally believe there are four basic PC/SW consumption domains. The place you sit/stand and the way you interact and behave in each of these domains is often fundamentally different, and probably won't change much over our lifetimes. Some are social (at least optionally so), some are generally person:person or human:machine only. 1) Communication - Email, IM, etc. Happens anywhere on almost any device type (Workstations, PDAs, etc.). Person:person and/or group interaction. 2) Productivity - MS Office-type tools (Word, Excel, etc.). Up-close, generally structured setting, fancy typewriter. Usually human:machine experience. Usually happens in a corporate or home office-type environment (or airplane seat). 3) Education - Purpose built applications, interactive tools, personal research. Person:person, human:machine and/or group interaction. 4) Entertainment - While you can do all of the above in this domain too, it isn't clear outside of a connected group like this how many typical consumers are really going to want to do so. This domain traditionally uses purpose-built devices. Bulletproof reliability. CE environment. Aesthetic design. Heat/noise restrictions. Typically sit-back experience. This last domain has always been the hard nut to crack for Microsoft. It could potentially represent a huge market, but the requirements are tough. It could be a major pull for MS DRM'd content, MS compressed content, MS .NET broadband services, MS OS's set top boxes and CE platforms, the back-end MS SQL servers and MS XML Biz-Biz apps to run it all, etc. Hence the attraction. However, I think that you also have to consider that the numbers below can be deceiving. I experienced first hand the many waves of product prototyping with focus groups where consumers initially think something will be cool in the entrance exam (survey), but their interest level quickly falls of as they revert to their standard behaviour patterns. I also don't think that the major CE companies are going to relinquish this turf very easily. (Having said all that I want to see MS stock go to $100/share again.) - Tom McMahon -----Original Message----- From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Craig Birkmaier Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 6:10 AM To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [opendtv] Re: IBM out of the PC business At 5:32 PM -0500 12/3/04, Manfredi, Albert E wrote: >I thought that this had essentially already happened, but it's still an >intriguing demonstration of how innovative products become commodity >items. Part of the off-shoring thread. Clearly - and thankfully - the "classic" PC has become a legacy product. The market is evolving in many directions. The notion that the PC in the office and information appliances in the home will evolve down the same path is absurd. I just saw a stat in a NYTimes story about the proposed IBM sale that was quite interesting. "We've been in the post-PC era for four years now," Mr. Schwartz said, noting that last year a billion wireless handsets were sold compared with 100 million personal computers. Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.