Taking computers beyond work -- to fun

Wednesday, October 1, 2003

By BOB KEEFE
COX NEWS SERVICE

LOS ANGELES -- The personal computer's slow evolution from work tool to consumer plaything took a big step yesterday, with the world's biggest software company and several major computer makers simultaneously announcing new entertainment-centric machines and software.

Microsoft Corp. led the new product parade, unveiling an updated software platform built specifically to transform PCs into home entertainment centers.

Computers running the new Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 platform can do everything typical Windows-based machines do today -- word processing, Internet access and spreadsheets, for instance. But it also comes with built-in software for watching and recording television shows, downloading and playing movies and listening to music -- whether from CDs, the Internet or a radio station on the other side of the country.

Computers running the software can be operated with a television-style remote control as well as a keyboard.

"The PC itself is changing," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said by video during Microsoft rollout events here and in three other cities. "It's no longer relegated to the den or study, and using it doesn't have to mean sitting at a desk."

In conjunction with Microsoft's announcement, Dell Inc., Sony Corp. and other computer makers announced they would begin selling new media-centric PCs based on the new software -- just in time for the holiday shopping season and just as the soft PC market is in need of something new to stimulate sales. The software is available only on new computers.

Dell, the world's biggest PC maker, yesterday introduced a basic $999 media-centric computer -- one of the cheapest machines of its type so far. The relatively low price should help stimulate the nascent market, analysts and others said.

Other computer makers used yesterday's software introduction to unveil unique products that look and work more like televisions than computers. Gateway Inc., for instance, unveiled a new all-in-one media center PC with a 17-inch flat-panel screen designed for watching DVDs, a built-in stereo system and wireless keyboard and remote.

The new machine is priced at $1,500.

"You could do many of these things before, but you had to do it in bits and pieces and had to do it while sitting at a desk," said Gateway spokesman Brad Williams. "This makes it more of a media experience and less of a data-processing experience."

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