If you're going to write PC software with mainstream reach, you gotta work with Windows, right? Not necessarily.
As creative-thinking software developer The Pixel Company has discovered, not all PC hardware and screen control is locked up by Microsoft's dominant operating system. With the release of its new PC control bar, MySpace, the company has effectively struck out for the territories.
Akin to the taskbar in Windows, the MySpace control bar contains customizable "cartridges," which can provide access to functions such as the launching and management of software and hardware applications and links to Web sites. These functions are provided via TV-like channel buttons.
But more unique is the way MySpace does its thing -- independent of the operating system and the conventional screen space that displays it. The Pixel Company, a spin-off of PC-maker Packard Bell, has found a way to position a control bar in the 25 or so pixels of black screen space below the normal position of the Windows taskbar -- space the company calls the "overscan" area.
To circumvent the confines of Windows and its conventional screen borders, MySpace works directly with the VGA driver of a user's monitor. Running independently of the operating system -- it loads before Windows at startup -- the control bar thus remains on-screen and available to users at all times.
"The big difference is that this is completely outside the Windows desktop," said company spokeswoman Stacey Branom. "For future versions, we're hoping to add links to alternate operating systems." Those might include Unix, Java-based operating systems, and Macintosh.
The Pixel Company's first OEM agreement will be with its former corporate parent, Packard Bell, and NEC, who will install the software on the PCs it sells to its customers. The company says a general release, with the software available on its Web site, is planned for September. The Pixel Company is also in talks with other PC makers.
Why are PC manufacturers interested in MySpace?
The appeal, Branom said, "is the visibility to consumers. [OEM-provided software] might not normally get on the Windows desktop because of rules and agreements and contract restrictions." MySpace thus gives them potential visibility and marketing opportunities that they might not otherwise have, she said.
"They can license and purchase a space that is their own and customize it ... for whatever they [wish]," Branom said. It also has the potential of saving manufacturing costs for OEMs, as the bar's controls could be used to replace the physical buttons that manufacturers install to control monitors or CD drives, for example.
The first version will also contain Internet links to Planet Oasis, which the company describes as a "virtual 3-D city" with a visual index to 500-plus Web sites.
The software's über-Windows maneuvering and Packard Bell's involvement in developing and distributing it may be part of a pattern for the PC maker. Like Gateway before it, Packard Bell is showing Redmond-defying gumption with a plan for a new NEC laptop computer that will exclude Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.
