PCs Are The Primary Battle Ground in HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray War

If you’re still wondering why Toshiba and Sony are at it each others’ throats in the HD-DVD vs. Blue-ray War, it’s because the winner will take all.  The company who emerges with the next standard for next-gen optical storage brings home the royalties bacon. The loser becomes a footnote in the History of Technology. Or let’s put it this way: what ever happened to the Betamax?

Unfortunately for both companies, the decision on who gets the prize is not in their hands. Some analysts said the porn industry will have the last say on this.  But PC makers think PCs could be the Waterloo or the Little Big Horn for one of them. Howard Locker, director of new technology at China’s Lenovo Group, says “The three major suppliers of the players of these new next-generation discs will be the PC industry, consumer electronics and gaming machines,” Locker said. “If you look at the volumes, PCs are now more than 50 percent of that total space, so we’ll have a big say on who wins.”

At this point, many PC makers are doing a Switzerland, refusing to take sides. Even Lenovo, the world’s third-biggest computer manufacturer, is taking a wait-and-see approach, keeping friendly with both camps but pledging allegiance to neither. Not  just yet. Other industry giants are not as indecisive.  Dell, the world’s biggest PC maker, is  committed to Blu-ray, while No.2 Hewlett-Packard will support both standards. Ditto with Acer and Asustek.  Although they showed off notebook models with HD DVD drives Computex 2006, the companies plan to support Blu-ray when drives become available. (See Philips, Lite-on, BenQ Spin Out Blu-ray Drives)  Industry insiders at Computex are giving the advantage to Toshiba in terms of market readiness because its HD-DVD technology is about a half year ahead of Sony’s. 

Just one more thing… do consumers, that means those of us who will be paying for all of these, have a say in this?

Via CNet

If you’re still wondering why Toshiba and Sony are at it each others’ throats in the HD-DVD vs. Blue-ray War, it’s because the winner will take all.  The company who emerges with the next standard for next-gen optical storage brings home the royalties bacon. The loser becomes a footnote in the History of Technology. Or let’s put it this way: what ever happened to the Betamax?

Unfortunately for both companies, the decision on who gets the prize is not in their hands. Some analysts said the porn industry will have the last say on this.  But PC makers think PCs could be the Waterloo or the Little Big Horn for one of them. Howard Locker, director of new technology at China’s Lenovo Group, says “The three major suppliers of the players of these new next-generation discs will be the PC industry, consumer electronics and gaming machines,” Locker said. “If you look at the volumes, PCs are now more than 50 percent of that total space, so we’ll have a big say on who wins.”

At this point, many PC makers are doing a Switzerland, refusing to take sides. Even Lenovo, the world’s third-biggest computer manufacturer, is taking a wait-and-see approach, keeping friendly with both camps but pledging allegiance to neither. Not  just yet. Other industry giants are not as indecisive.  Dell, the world’s biggest PC maker, is  committed to Blu-ray, while No.2 Hewlett-Packard will support both standards. Ditto with Acer and Asustek.  Although they showed off notebook models with HD DVD drives Computex 2006, the companies plan to support Blu-ray when drives become available. (See Philips, Lite-on, BenQ Spin Out Blu-ray Drives)  Industry insiders at Computex are giving the advantage to Toshiba in terms of market readiness because its HD-DVD technology is about a half year ahead of Sony’s. 

Just one more thing… do consumers, that means those of us who will be paying for all of these, have a say in this?

Via CNet