As the confusion continues in the long and pointless battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (which I've written about before) over which standard will dominate next-generation DVD sales, the people who actually manufacture the players that go into consumers' living rooms will soon be able to easily support both standards.
As a result, smart purchasers — the ones who usually buy the latest and greatest and lead the pack — will likely sit on their hands and wait for the new players, which will not be available until 2007 at the earliest. Your local electronics retailer won't sell many of the available next-generation players, which is a bit tough on them. And since Microsoft Vista won't be ready until 2007, computer sales will also be slow until 2007, which will make things even more difficult for the retailers.
Both these incidents are sides of the same coin. Blu-ray and HD-DVD couldn't' find common ground, share authority, and settle on a single specification. The result is slow sales. Microsoft's Vista is tied so closely to the purchase of computers — Macintosh and Linux remain distant competitors in the consumer space — that any glitch at Microsoft severely affects sales. Lack of disaggregation has very real commercial consequences.
Topics: · business · predictions · standards · technology
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Moshe Yudkowsky wrote at 2006-11-13 17:17:
We've only just started to use computers; for that matter, relatively speaking, we've only just started to use electricity.
We have a long, long way to go before these technologies even start to become mature, and we'll never run out of innovation.
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melrose notary wrote at 2006-11-13 15:53: