Chordonblue's Journal: Gartner warns of Media PC slowdown - Shocking?

A recent report from Gartner warns that media PC's aren't selling. Here's the reasons they give:

1) The PC industry hasn't done enough to make them easy enough to use.
2) Media PCs are expensive
3) Suffer from spotty reliability
4) They don't relate well to other media devices
5) Have poor aesthetics

Well let's take these one at a time...

Number 1 - "It's too hard daddy!"

Bzzzzzt.. Wrong! First of all, the 'PC Industry' isn't the problem you CLUELESS IDIOTS! Why do people like Gartner continue to get paid for shit like this??!

It's a combination of factors. First and foremost you can blame Microsoft for that bad software design and Fisher Price color scheme. But I have to say that Media Edition isn't so bad and I don't think that's the issue at all here. No, I think it has more to do with getting COMPATIBLE CONTENT INSIDE THE BOX! Or simply getting shit to work together. Working through everybody's DRM bullshit is the REAL issue here and that can be laid right at the door of the music and film industry. Please Gartner, let's be honest where the real problems are, ok?

But maybe they're not lying. Maybe Gartner is totally clueless about the real problem. Hey Gartner, how about you try this for a change:

Get your staff one of these boxes and actually let them TAKE IT HOME. Let the wife and kids play with it, try to figure it out. Find out what works, what doesn't and WHY. What did you expect it to do? What isn't it doing (like cataloging all your DVD's for instance).

THEN, come back to us with a 'hard hitting' business report based on a real life experience. Imagine that. The cool thing about doing this sort of research is that you get to find out whether something's going to take off or not before the rest of the 'experts' out there do and you'll have the real reasons WHY.

Number 2 - "Kinda Pricey"

Yeah, maybe. But then, that didn't stop a lot of people from getting what they wanted before in consumer electronics (see, iPod, DVD and CD players when they were new). What MPC's haven't been able to do is DO WHAT PEOPLE WANT. I want to load my DVD's, CD's, Cable TV on demand, the whole pattycake - with no trouble. Do that, and I'll pay the price for it because it will be worth it. But they can't promise that, can they? Why the hell not?!

Number 3 - "Worked yesterday, then they updated their channel listing and now none of it works right. This thing sucks!"

Yeah. See reason Number 1... And while you're at it, give the MPAA a call and tell 'em to...

Number 4 - "Shit don't work right"

Part of this has to do with the ongoing battle between rival electronics forces. Part of it has to do with stupidity on the part of greedy people. In either case, the customer is screwed, the word gets out that the shit don't work, and sales are 'surprisingly' low.

No kidding!

Number 5 - "It just doesn't go well with my Van Gogh motif"

No doubt that 'quality' individuals everywhere cringe when they look at 99% of these monstrocities. Me? I could care less. Set the box next to the 'set. But I know the types who are a little 'sensitive' about this sort of thing. For those, there are Mac Mini's.

But they do have a point here though, and that is that if PC companies want to start selling consumer-like items, they are going to have to re-think design of these things.

So in conclusion...

Did anyone else out there NOT see this coming? It's like those tablet PC's. Raise your hand if you really thought they were going to take off. Niche markets? Definately! Wave of the future? Uh.. Wave of the hand.