Living Room PCs are not going to Take Off, argues Ovum

Ovum has dismissed the living room PC, after watching the launch of new home entertainment systems at this month's International Consumer Electronics event in Las Vegas, USA.

The PC industry has, for the past couple of years, unsuccessfully tried to convince consumers that the next 'must-have' is in the living room, argues IT research firm Ovum's senior analyst Carl Gressum.

He argues that the big pink elephant that no one wants to see is high-end PCs in alternative form factors to make them more acceptable in the living room space, be connected to the television and be the center for digital media and TV viewing. 'Products were brought to market, and they flopped one after the other. Hardly any consumers bought them because the PC platform is a poor performer for TV purposes. It is complex, expensive and offers few advantages that single-function, discrete devices cannot offer.'

For instance, the new the AMD LIVE! Home Cinema system, launched at the show, perpetuates what Gressum suggests are the PC's two main drawbacks: the complexity of its underlying architecture and the fact that the market is not interested at all in letting the PC control the TV.

Gressum concludes: 'Even if the PC platform can handle TV and video applications, it does not mean, from a consumer perspective, it's the most appropriate platform to sit underneath the television. There is a market for a more advanced TV device than a dumb set-top box or DVD player, but this device will not be a PC.

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