Ever since Apple's little MP3 player, the best toys come from the PC biz.
From the people who brought you the beige box and the 35-pound monitor comes a new era in consumer gadgets. Seriously. Apple introduced the iPod two years ago, and Gateway followed with its "must-see TV," a giant, flat-screen plasma model that sold for less than $3,000. This holiday season, Hewlett-Packard is banking on digital cameras and handhelds, and cut-rate PC purveyor Dell is getting into the game with PDAs, TVs, portable music players, and an online music store.
That's critical mass. Consumer electronics of all kinds are increasingly digital, and computermakers are using their expertise to improve our toys. Better, more efficient devices are making their way into our homes. The third age of gadgets - the golden age - is about to begin.
The first era of consumer electronics, the copper age, started after World War I with the radio. Everything more or less worked. Cameras didn't crash, and a consultant was someone who helped with your taxes, not programmed your television. The products were simple, of course, and had only a few knobs and buttons - Power, Volume, Play. They were simple, single-minded, and never mingled.
With the mid-1980s came the plastic age. Computers replaced typewriters; CDs replaced cassettes. Analog devices like audio and video players, televisions, and cameras struggled to converge. But they were still stand-alone islands of proprietary technology, loosely connected by lowest-common-denominator cables. No matter how digital the electronics got, the companies that made the gadgets were still stovepiped; suites of devices worked in perfect harmony - as long as they all wore the same corporate logo. If you managed to force a Sony receiver to work with a Panasonic TV, you lived in a rat's nest of cables with a coffee table covered in remotes and a spouse who couldn't turn on the television without a briefing.
Why didn't consumer electronics firms compromise on standards for interoperability? Because they're jerks. In the plastic age, gadget technology - and therefore any gadget - had to compete for shelf space at minuscule cost margins. Rather than sit down to iron out one superior system, companies wasted time fighting: VHS versus Beta, MiniDisc versus CD, USB versus FireWire. Common standards, it seems, don't lock consumers into brand loyalty.
This is where the PC industry comes in and the golden age begins. If traditional electronics firms were all about exclusivity, computermakers are all about common standards and commoditized parts. And the PC folks know how to implement software-based systems. They know that if documents, pictures, video, and music are merely streams of 1s and 0s, it makes sense to put software in computers, cameras, and DVD and CD players. And they know how to do it for less money.
Sony had a shot at launching this new age. But its competent, snazzy computers fall into the old stovepipe trap. The Memory Stick is great, unless you want to connect with another company's product. These guys won't even call FireWire "FireWire." But more important, Sony's consumer electronics divisions are tanking for lack of parts. The company uses 840,000 different components - Sony says it'll slash that to 100,000 by 2005. Toshiba made similar promises for similar reasons. But computer manufacturers learned the parts lesson a decade ago - streamlining their supply chains made them more competitive. Computer guts are computer guts, and going digital means putting the same chips and circuits in every device. In the computer industry, commodification reduces manufacturing costs (improving razor-thin margins) and guarantees inter-operability. It'll work with consumer electronics, too.
What comes next? Device compatibility. The PC industry was built on the under-standing that consumers buy accessories from multiple companies, and, in order to maintain customer loyalty, products will be competition-friendly. Digital cameras and peer-to-peer music and video-sharing have turned the PC into a household entertainment database. Once computermakers pour their experience into electronic gizmos, that PC will become an entertainment server, linked to a home network of speakers, portable devices, display terminals, and so on. Want your USB 2.0 products to play with your FireWire toys over Wi-Fi? Go for it.
What does your average gadget buyer get out of this? Cheaper stuff that works, works together, and resists obsolescence.
The harbinger of all this change was the iPod. One benefit of any digital technology is that its firmware and software can be updated regularly. You don't have to buy new hardware to stay current - just upgrade your device's operating system and applications every now and then. The iPod is, after all, just a hard drive in hot pants - and that's the secret of its success.
Sure, computers have a few problems. When's the last time you needed to call tech support for your Walkman? Plus, it's been a while since the PC industry was heralded for tech advancements - innovation has devolved into a gigabyte fight.
But that'll change. Unlike electronics companies, computermakers aren't limited to their own R&D departments. They're partnered with thousands of small firms worldwide doing frontline research. The little guys leapfrog each other, and the big guys reap the benefits. And you can forget about waiting months to get the latest tech. Gateway and Dell both build for speed. Most of their competitors sealed their holiday lineups months ago, but these two often hawk early-adopter tech within weeks of its manufacture.
This is the world electronics companies made, after all -éthey taught us to expect the newest, coolest, smartest toys. Only now it's the computer companies that are giving them to us.
START
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