LAS VEGAS -- The missing pieces that will allow consumers to use their PCs as digital media hubs are fiber-based broadband links to the home and seamless integration of multiple devices, Dell Chairman Michael Dell said in his keynote address to attendees at the Consumer Electronics Show here on Tuesday.
"Customers say they want to use their PCs for digital home entertainment, but it really hasn't caught on because of two things: Broadband isn't where it needs to be for reliable performance, and the industry hasn't made it easy for devices to work together," Dell said.
To fix the bandwidth problem, Dell urged telecom companies to lay fiber-optic broadband Internet links to homes, something Verizon is offering through a pilot program in the United States, he said. And to improve device integration, Dell suggested that hardware vendors should take their inspiration from Sling Media, whose Slingbox enables users to share video or music content between different platforms.
Also at the show, Dell unveiled a Home Media Suite desktop PC that offers vast storage capacity and a 27-inch wide-screen display. The XPS 410 has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory, a 1TB RAID storage array, a digital cable TV tuner, and Windows Vista. The Home Media Suite will launch in the United States this month, as soon as Microsoft releases the Vista OS.
Dell has plenty of competition in trying to reach customers interested in the convergence of TV and other media functions with those of a home PC. HP, which recently overtook Dell as the world's largest PC vendor, also launched a large-screen desktop with a TV tuner at the show.
Enviromental Plans
Michael Dell did not use his keynote to suggest new solutions for company problems such as delayed earnings reports due to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accounting investigation, or the loss of market share to HP.
Instead, he described business initiatives such as Dell Datasafe, a service to help customers migrate their data from current PCs to newly purchased computers by storing their data briefly on Dell's servers and then downloading it to the new machine. Dell also announced an environmental plan called "Plant a Tree for Me" that gives customers the option to donate an extra $2 when they buy a Dell notebook, or $6 when purchasing a desktop, to plant new trees that will absorb carbon dioxide, thus offsetting future greenhouse gas emissions. That service will launch in the United States in February and will be available worldwide by April.
Finally, Dell unveiled a gaming PC aimed at the world's 12.5 million players of massively multiplayer online games. The XPS 710 H2C features powerful processors and video cards whose heat is absorbed through two stages of cooling: Both a radiator-type liquid-to-air heat exchanger and a ceramic-based thermoelectric cooling module work to keep the PC's heat down. The system is now available worldwide for $5499.
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