PMC Praise From DevBuzz

[Kent Pribbernow]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.devbuzz.com/content/init_personal_media_center.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.devbuzz.com/content/init_personal_media_center.asp</a><br /><br /></div>DevBuzz seems to disagree with <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=45291">Louderback's assertions</a>. They have published three seperate articles which paint a rather possitive picture of the upcoming Zen Personal Media Center device from Creative. The author goes on to say Microsoft and Creative "hit a homerun" with this new product. <br /><br />Hear that, Jim?

[Felix Torres]

Reading the previews and (more importantly, the interview) brought back memories of the old Palm vs Pocket PC debates over color screens and stereo sound.

I'm thinking we're headed for a direct replay with the PMC nay-sayers taking a tack equivalent to the Palm-isters assertion that low-res black and white was all anybody would ever need in a PDA, right up to the point Palm OS started to support color and MP3-playback.

From where I sit, the PMCs start out as high-grade digital music players, just like the Pocket PC started out as a competent PDA and file editor. The PMC then adds digital image and video playback in much the same way the PocketPC added multimedia and gameplay capabilities, as frosting on the cake.

In both cases, MS is making the same bet; that, instead of a mature established market, it is entering a growing but still young market that it can help define. In the handheld computing arena, the PocketPC feature set has come to dominate and all competing products are now *expected* to at least measure up to the feature set of the original PocketPC in screen, expandability, and multimedia capabilities.

With digital media players it is a safe bet to expect that even non-PMCs will begin to adopt PMC features as soon as next january. I, for one, fully expect a color-screen pod by the January CES, simply because the incremental cost is minimal yet it will deliver actual value to at least some customers.

Just as Palm had to go beyond their original minimalist design philosophy to stay in the game with the PocketPC, so too will Apple have to abandon its only-music approach. A failure to do so in a timely fashion would simply relegate the pod to the lower reaches of the portable entertainment market and allow MS to cherry-pick the high end, as they did to Palm.

Historically speaking, customers have always chosen the higher feature-content product in every single market as long as the price premium is minimal or non-existent; I see no reason to expect portable entertainment to be different.

It may take a while but I expect PMCs will define the market, even if they don't necessarily dominate it right away.

two cents more or less... 8)