James Fee
09-16-2005, 09:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122539,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122539,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Although the operating system has been around for three years, shipments of Media Center PCs didn't really start to take off until July, when Gateway and other vendors started selling Media Center PCs without a TV tuner, said Toni DuBoise, senior analyst with Current Analysis in San Diego. Between June and July, retail shipments of Media Center PCs without TV tuners skyrocketed, from 3.4 percent of all Media Center PCs to 61 percent in July, according to data compiled by Current Analysis. Over the same period of time, the price of an average Media Center PC fell almost $200. As a result, Media Center PCs made up 40 percent of the total retail desktop market in August, up from 32 percent in July and just 15 percent in June, DuBoise said. Current Analysis measures sales of PCs at retail stores in the U.S., which notably excludes market share leader Dell. A Dell representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Dell's figures in the Media Center PC market."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/pcpc.jpg" /> <br /><br />Impressive, but how many of these are actually used as a traditional media center PC? Probably not many, but it shows that Microsoft should stop branding MCE as a separate product and should have introduced these features into XP Home.