Charlie Owen - Kitchen PC In The Living Room

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

After reading about his poor experience working with the release candidate of Windows Vista at the last WinHEC I contacted Brier and offered to provide a Windows Media Center PC to take for a spin. Using computers prepped for events like WinHEC are always a dicey proposition -- most of the time they are multi-purpose and have therefore been touched by multiple folks with differing goals (which might not be compatible) before reaching the show floor. Throw in a beta OS and -- well -- you can almost guarantee the outcome isn't going to be very positive. Brier politely declined to take me up on the offer at that time. (Never was sure why, but my best guess was obviated with his article today.)

Brier contacted me last week via email with a note invoking that prior conversation and noting he 'ended up borrowing a TouchSmart from HP and swapped it for my living room TV for a few months' and was preparing an article on his experiences which he published today. I'll admit I literally chuckled out loud when I read his email -- the TouchSmart computer was designed for the kitchen, not the living room, so my initial reaction was 'no good can come from this'. What's a good analogy here...? Perhaps buying some great teak outdoor patio furniture and putting it in your family room is a good one. Needless to say I was interested in hearing about his experiences for better or worse so I responded and we had a great conversation.

Some thoughts after reading his article...

1) It sure would be nice if a journalist would review a Windows Media Center system as our team envisions. Let us hear about your environment, and then help you select a combination of hardware which addresses your needs and wishes. Some might say this would affect the integrity of the writer. I don't think so -- as long as the writer is up front about the assistance he got from Microsoft.

2) It would be great if the major OEMs were more selective of 'value add' software they choose to place on the machine (see Briers follow up posted this afternoon). Unfortunately Briers experience with preinstalled stuff is the norm -- sadly. But for a very few exceptions, whenever I help family and friends purchase a new computer I have it delivered to my house first where I perform a clean install of the operating system to avoid this stuff. Some folks, particularly on our OEM team, might go nuts when they read this, since OEMs are our bread and butter. Wake up -- this stuff degrades the user experience far too much. I know, sounds strange coming from a platform guy -- but this stuff *has* to get better folks -- plain and simple. Build GREAT software on the platform -- or choose NOT to ship the software.

3) My comment to Brier "I would really like for somebody to do a follow-up or a couple of follow-ups — they seem to put these great things out there, but there's not a version 2 or a version 3" was in the context of driving the costs down on great form factors for the living room. We've already got some great boxes designed as dedicated machines for your stereo stack -- but unfortunately the price points remain fairly high on them. It is interesting to note that for $400 less than the cost of the TouchSmart you can have an HP m7790e for the home office with almost exactly the same specs for the internals (processor, memory, etc.) plus an XBox 360 (with built in Media Center Extender) and a brand new high quality wired + wireless router (total for all of that is $1,400 as priced tonight, compared to $1,800 for the TouchSmart). More bang. Less buck.

Oh, and the offer still stands, Brier -- aren't you curious to see how well this stuff works as originally designed? :-)

Categories: Windows Media Center | Windows Vista | Comments [7] |

| Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 6:24:30 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:23:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I think the rock and the hard place in your case is that you're trying to take a product that has traditionally been a "luxury" product and move it into a mass market.

Living room media centers have, in the past, been high-end setups that were put together by highly consultative A/V shops that could make sure that setups matched needs. WMC is trying (and largely succeeding) to make this a mass-market experience.

The implication, though, is that people are going to buy and implement solutions for themselves without a lot of guidance. Sometimes, they'll do things the way you envision, and sometimes they won't.

In your case, things get even more indirect because you're working through OEM's. People buy a solution from HP, and make judgements about WMC based on that solution. Unfair? Maybe, but it's true. I think the best you can do in this case is to work closely with OEMs. It seems, for instance, that MS is working closely with HP on Home Server setups, so it's certainly possible.

I think when you see a review like this, you have to take it at face value, and understand that when some people see a 19" WMC device, it sure looks like a good replacement for a TV. If this guy's doing it, others will be, too, right? The best news of all is that you're getting feedback - you can take that and use it to improve everyone's experience.

D. Lambert

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 9:04:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

On the OEM thing - I can't agree more. I ALWAYS install a clean OS on a new machine (I use Win2003 Server, rather than XP, and noone installs that by default on a laptop :) )

Just for giggles, I fired up my brand new Thinkpad T60p with the OEM install.... and it was using around 500meg of RAM (with XP SP2) out of the box. WTF?! Vista I can understand using that much, but XP? A basic clean install of 2003 was around 100meg. My options were reformat, or try to uninstall all the crap they put on......

<sigh>

I had one of the MCE boxes for the last (pre vista) beta - the setup, thanks to MS, was fantastic - can't same the same for the box (Dell 360) - too loud for a living room, but other than that, it was a great piece of kit.

Nic Wise

Monday, March 26, 2007 8:47:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Designed for the kitchen?

If you haven't, next time your in the bay area you should check out the Computer History Museum. It's right next to the Microsoft Campus, and see how far things have come in 40 years...

http://www.computerhistory.org/virtualvisiblestorage/artifact_frame.php?tax_id=03.02.06.00

Castor Fu

Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:19:16 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I only want to comment on your point 2)

You know perfectly well that the 'value add' software brings down the price of the computer for the consumer. By how much doesn't matter for this discussion. What consumers shop for is price per hardware. All the ads by Circuit City, BestBuy and all the others reflect this. Every ad details the processor, RAM, hard drive etc. etc. It's still the hardware specs that get pushed. Not how well the software works or how great it is.

And it's a race to the bottom: If one manufacturer decides not to put the 'value add' software on their systems, their prices will go up, and customers will pick a competitor's system just because it's $X cheaper for the same hardware, but with the 'value add' software (which is not mentioned in the ads).

At this point it's a game of chicken, and nobody is going to move first.

If you can figure out a way to break this vicious circle in any other way than saying "it has to change for the better", you'll be a hero to the PC industry forever.

Oluf Nissen

Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:42:16 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Oluf: "You know perfectly well that the 'value add' software brings down the price of the computer for the consumer"

Actually, I believe the exact opposite is true -- while the 'value add' software may provide subsidies on the front side of the equation, it's presence (and lack of quality) incurs costs on the back side in terms of technical support. At best, it's a sum zero game.

Charlie Owen

Thursday, March 29, 2007 3:20:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Well, I agree on the zero sum game as far as added support costs. And I myself wish PCs didn't have to ship with all the unnecessary add-on software. I'm dreaming of the day when all you get are the OS and necessary drivers and software to make the hardware work. And then maybe one or two other things. Perhaps even customer-selectable when they order the PC.

That was not really my point, though. I was pointing out the competitive situation that keeps all the PC makers in the zero sum game, as you call it. It's the ability to do business that is at stake. Raise your prices and see the customers go to the competition. I mostly think that it's a problem with the American consumer mindset, actually. Price is king in every aspect of the American consumer's life. That's why Wal-Mart is so successful. That's why the zero sum game continues.

I still think if you could come up with an actual solution to this catch-22 you'd be the greatest hero for the industry. How about if we brainstorm together?

P.S.: Why is it that I have to do the code-entering twice to get a comment through? Is there a time limit on how long the code is good for?

Oluf Nissen

Tuesday, April 03, 2007 9:00:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

it's natural to look to the big OEMs and the name OEMs for a media center; the shame is that they're not doing the innovation in form factor for the living room that I'm seeing elsewhere. But if I want to replace my Elonex Lumina with another LCD panel with built-in media center PC, where do I look?

Mary Branscombe

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