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Dell's announcement
last month about offering up new home entertainment products such as digital
projectors, music players hooked up to online music services, and LCD TVs
doesn't bode well for the consumer or for the consumer electronics industry.
The problem has to do with the lack of support and integration of the products.
And while the high end audio-video industry will probably get a boost and bounce
from Dell's offerings, the rest of the market will muddle through with
second-rate products that are difficult to assemble and operate.
This isn't based on
any actual experience with Dell product, because Dell hasn't yet begun shipping
much of what they announced in this press
release.
In fact, finding the
release on Dell's Web site wasn't easy: The first place I tried to look brought
up a "broken link" page. This isn't a omen of good things to come.
But my comments are
based on my actual experience of walking in and out of dozens of homes, trying
to get stuff to work. Actually, the real challenge is trying to keep stuff that
I got to work to stay up and running weeks and months later.
Here's my mantra:
Make it cheap, make it simple, and make it work with the minimum of menus,
configuration files and choices. Too bad Dell has just the first part (cheap)
down pat. The rest will eventually follow, but in the meantime -- watch out.
If you are a
high-end AV installer, you are sitting pretty, provided you can keep your basic
hourly labor rate reasonable and don't mind taking a lot of "home user in
distress" service calls when they unpack all those boxes from Round Rock
and find out something is missing. If you are a network integrator and can
bundle the support into your product prices, you might do well too. If you are
a teenaged kid that can deal well with people, give up that night shift at
McDonalds or forget about cutting lawns: You have a solid source of income for
the next few years, at least until you leave town for college and have to fork
over the lucrative support contracts with your neighbors to your younger
siblings that are still sticking around town.
Want a taste of
things to come? Read the Fortune magazine article "Geek Eye for Luddite Guys."
I admit it -- as a
magazine editor I am jealous that I didn't think of doing this idea first. The
premise is that a group of computer guys try to makeover your average suburban
Virginia family room with several thousand dollars' worth of gear, in the
spirit of the Queer Eye Show on cable. Their conclusion is that you need a
lifetime support contract with one of the geeks, to make sure that you can get
all the remote controls programmed and keep everything working. Unlike the
personal makeover results and home decorating tips, some things just don't have
staying power; no matter how many bucks you pump into someone's living room,
you still need to have the guy around to help out when things break.
The trouble is with
the intersection of computers and home electronics. I am not talking about the
flashing "12:00" on the VCR. That is child's play. The computer stuff
is a lot harder to keep stable and constant. The kids download the latest
upgrade to peering service StealThisMusic.com, Mom needs an upgrade to her VPN
software to connect into work, and Dad wants to load up a new golf simulator
that by the way needs a better video card and more RAM to run. It is a constantly
shifting moving target, not helped by the latest worm running around the
Internet that is infecting everyone's hard disk. Imagine that media center PC
switching to channel V, for virus, and going dark.
But it doesn't have
to be even that insidious. In the households that I try to keep their networks
running, it is a running battle. An adult (it is usually the adults, although
they often try to pin the blame on the kids) unplugs the router, or trips over
the one of the zillions of cords coming out of the back of the PC, and
Something Goes Wrong. A couple of examples:
My daughter calls me
in a panic one afternoon. The power flicked out for a few minutes at home, and
her PC wasn't booting when the lights came back on. Turns out Grandpa forgot to
remove his floppy disk (remember those) from his visit last week, and crisis
was resolved with just the push of a button. (Boy did that make me feel great.
It is so nice when you can actually bond with your kids over tech support
issues that they don't know about. Now if I could just grok Radiohead I would
be all set.)
Or how about this: I
was over a friend's house yesterday, after a distress call that came in because
the home network stopped working. Luckily it was just something unplugged, and
I was done in less than five minutes. I don't mind -- it was a nice excuse for
a personal visit once we got the computer business out of the way. But these
events are far too typical. And no matter how high product quality can be, it
isn't gonna be high enough to get around these problems. And even with a
portable, personal and willing Strom (or equivalent), you can't be everywhere.
And you can't fix these things yourself.
Apple has the best
chance of making inroads here, although they aren't even immune from the odd
glitch. This week I wanted to sign up for their iTunes Music store.
Unfortunately, my task was interrupted when I tried to remember the security
code imprinted on the back of my credit card and long since worn out from
frequent swiping. Oh well.
But all this home
entertainment confusion has another side to it. I think the best opportunity is
what I call the revenge of the nerds: those geeky high schoolers that have the
know-how and are willing to work for next to nothing, or at least for the price
of a case of high-fructose beverages, and can get the job done. These are the
new VARs-in-training, the next generation of computer whiz kids, and they are
my people. And I am glad. In the meantime, before you buy your Dell Digital
Media Extravaganza, start looking around for your own private nerd.
Entire contents copyright 2003 by David Strom, Inc.
David Strom, dstrom@cmp.com, +1 (516) 562-7151
Port Washington NY 11050
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