Living the Internet Lifestyle

Not convinced that the Internet lifestyle is the right one for you? A new industry group hopes to convince you that it is.

About a dozen large companies, including high-tech and retail firms, announced the formation Wednesday of the Internet Home Alliance. The group will try to raise awareness of home networking technologies among consumers and boost cooperation among vendors, in the hope of turning the much hyped networked home into a reality.

The founding members of the group, which include Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, CompUSA, Sears Roebuck, and General Motors, have each donated $2.5 million to the project.

The money will be used to educate consumers about the "Internet lifestyle," and to fund working groups that will foster cooperation among equipment vendors, says Bill Kenney, president of the Internet Home Alliance and vice president for strategy, home, and online services at Sears Roebuck.

Get Connected

So what is the Internet lifestyle anyway? As the high-tech visionaries see it, every electrical appliance around the home can be networked together to bring increased comfort and convenience. Home energy systems could be linked to computers in automobiles, allowing people to adjust their heating or switch on the porch light while they drive home from work. (See "Welcome to IBM's Wired Home.")

In the kitchen, networked refrigerators and ovens could be monitored remotely by manufacturers, who would send repairmen to replace worn out parts before you knew they needed fixing. And entertainment equipment such as TVs, stereos, and new types of viewing screens could be networked around the house, allowing you to play songs or watch movies in any part of the home. (See "Home, Sweet Digital Home." )

The vision isn't new, but despite the fact that more than 50 percent of U.S. homes have a PC, only a small fraction of them use home networks to link together smart devices around the home. The Internet Home Alliance, which was pulled together over the past nine months, aims to change that.

"There are a lot of very talented companies out there creating devices and technologies, all of which have the potential to make a real difference in people's lives," Kenney says. "But for the mass market to understand, they need to go somewhere to see it, to touch it."

Getting Together

That's why the alliance includes U.S. retailers such as CompUSA and Best Buy. The idea is that consumers will be able to walk into those and other stores and see demonstrations of home networking products in action.

One company noticeably absent from the alliance is Microsoft. The software giant is a fierce rival of alliance member Sun, and the two companies have developed what some view as competing technology standards for home networking--Sun's Jini technology, and Microsoft's Universal Plug and Play.

Microsoft was invited to join the alliance but has yet to accept the offer, Kenney says.

"We've had discussions with Microsoft about this alliance and also with other companies as well. We are an open alliance and we are looking to have everyone join," he says.

The other members of the Home Internet Alliance are 3Com, Honeywell, Motorola, New Power, and Matsushita Electric of America (manufacturer of the Panasonic brand). Contributors include Reliant Energy and Texas Instruments.