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Media Center
The battle for the living room is heating up according to the Associated Press and in 2006 we can expect over one billion dollars to be spent promoting technologies aimed at bringing mainstream computing into our living rooms.
Microsoft Media Center has been an effective solution allowing the PC to take center stage in the living room and it has met with modest success. Still the limiting factor in allowing true mainstream adoption of 
The PC makers have longed to get into our living rooms for years but just haven been successful.
Most companies haven't taken close enough notice of the what's behind Apple's iPod success, says Rob Enderle, an analyst at the Enderle Group research firm.
"Most of the technology products being thrown at the home market aren't particularly attractive or well priced, and ease of use isn't anywhere in their description," he said. "Until that gets fixed, we're going to have some serious problems."
People are simply tired and frustrated by computers that take too long to boot, crash, get infected by viruses and demand constant updates with security patches.
Why would they want such a thing controlling their entertainment? Old set-top boxes supplied by cable and satellite TV companies may be dumb and slow but at least they're low maintenance.
Intel's solution is Viiv, a hardware and quality assurance platform that's expected to be launched in the first part of the year. As Intel did with its Centrino brand for notebooks and Wi-Fi hot spots, it will make sure Viiv-stickered PCs, gadgets, services and content play well with one another.
Viiv-branded PCs, not surprisingly, will include Intel chips that should enable smaller and more appealing cases, said Eric Kim, Intel's chief marketing officer. "Until now, devices (media servers) were PC-like devices with fans, a tower, and lots of noise, and people don't want that in their living rooms," he said.
Microsoft too is going to come out swinging with its new Vista Media Center Edition of Windows that supports CableCARD allowing TV viewing without a set-top box. Although the government has prodded the cable industry to allow such cards to be used instead of set-top boxes there are still channels that cannot be accessed without the ubiquitous cable box.
So these advances can be considered a step in the right direction for Intel and Microsoft and the billion dollars of marketing referenced earlier in this article describe the budget for 2006 for both 
Apple too is widely expected to become a force in the home entertainment field and if you had to place your bet on someone you would be safe to put it behind the company that changed the MP3 market and owns iTunes.
Apple has such a strong hook into the consumer electronics and entertainment spaces it is tough to imagine anyone else taking this away from them. As Apple computers begin to embrace Intel chips in the future it is possible the two companies will collaborate to introduce truly leading-edge products and services that will leverage the best of computers and home entertainment.
So the lowly set-top box is facing fierce competition from the computer makers. To date the set-top companies haven't had to deal with computer companies as a major threat as their products were easy to use and just plain worked.
In my opinion they will have to worry when Apple gets into the game in a more serious way. The cable box reminds me a lot of the MP3 player before Apple came onto the scene. Few people paid attention to them, they were unglamorous and taken for granted.
Apple will undoubtedly come out with a product at a nice price point that ends in 99 and call it something fancy that starts with an i. Apple is already dabbling in this market and rumors abound that the company will enter more seriously next year. I for one expect such a device and expect it to do well.
If Apple becomes the leader in the
So if the PC is going to compete with the cable box then these two titans are going to be in for a long bloody fight. I for one have seen Microsoft and everyone else try to take Apple out these last few years and nothing seems to work. I think Apple is firmly entrenched in the consumer electronics space and if they don't screw it up they will make serious inroads into the home entertainment market as well.
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Faulty Microsoft Patches
The more and more frequently Microsoft sends patches and security updates the more difficult it becomes to be productive. I have multiple computers at work and at home and help manage many computers for friends and family members. Lately I have found myself almost constantly downloading patches and updating Windows. Many people in MIS positions tell me they feel Microsoft sends patches so frequently that there is obviously no regression testing. They are just trying to put out fires as fast as possible. In the process they start new ones.
Indeed we at TMC have seen systems fail due to patches that change the way programs operate. There is no warning when this happens. You just at some point find out your programs aren't working and bang your head against a wall while trying to fix the problem. This article is just another example of these problems in action.
Microsoft is basically screwed as I see it. There are armies of hackers trying to make a name for themselves by exploiting holes in Microsoft products. The more successful the
This is similar to the spam in my inbox actually. My e-mail address has been on the open Internet for over a decade now and the more spam I kill the more that comes up. These days I routinely get as much spam in other languages as I do English. Well at least the spammers aren't discriminating.
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Ireland Skype and VoIP
Interesting Irish perspective on Skype and VoIP:
HOW POPULAR IS Skype in
More concrete evidence comes in the form of Skype Zones - designated locations where, for a monthly fee of 6.50, you can make unlimited calls using a software download from a company called Boingo.
Skype isn't alone in the market, however. Vonage offers a similar service and is very popular in the US, while both BT and Yahoo have announced VoIP services that will undercut Skype in cost.
Ian Fogg, broadband and VoIP analyst at JupiterResearch, recently told tech news website vnunews.com: "This is a very dynamic market and there is an acceptance that using the internet and the PC to make phone calls is going mainstream."
So don't be surprised to find someone you know Skyping, Vonaging or VoIPing in one form or another in the new year. It might even be you.
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The Free PSTN Call
For those of you who are unfamiliar, DialPad was the first company to offer free US calling over the Internet from anywhere in the world. The service worked over dialup but as you might imagine the quality was better over broadband. At its peak the company had just under than 20 million registered users! DialPad is now owned by Yahoo. I got to thinking about the company and how the time may be right for another company to copy its model when I read this entry on Erik Lagerway's SIPthat blog.
What is amazing about VoIP is now that it is once again popular; everyone seems to be an expert on the topic. Few people were covering the market back in the good old days. Erik is obviously a veteran.
I did some searches on some of my writing in the past on free long distance based on Internet telephony and found a few articles worth noting. The first is an interview with Sarah Hofstetter of Net2Phone. Sarah is another veteran in VoIP and is one of those people that was in our industry prior to day one.
The next article of interest that I found was actually the prior month's Publisher's Outlook in Internet Telephony Magazine -- dating back to May 2000.
In this column I added a sidebar titled "Dial W-E-B For Long Distance."
Here is that sidebar:
As I write this column, I just signed up for dialpad.com, a free PC-to-phone service that allows you to call any
Dialpad.com claims they have over four million customers already. While they may not all be current, active users of this service, it shows you how powerful viral marketing can be. A recent meeting with executives at Quicknet Technologies, makers of products that improve the quality and ease of use of Internet telephony, led to the conclusion that free PC-to-phone long-distance will soon be commonplace.
Who can argue with such logic, in light of the fact that deltathree.com recently threw their free PC-to-phone hat in the ring as well? deltathree.com's service allows you to call within the
The Web-based advertising model has enticed companies to give their customers free financial information, access to many types of information, ISP services, PCs, and now free long-distance.
This advertising model, when coupled with the global reach of the Internet, is absolutely awesome. Many analysts predict a shakeout in the advertising-based services. They feel that there will simply not be enough advertising out there to support so many sites. I disagree. In fact, as the e-commerce revolution continues to grow and more and more "dotcoms" come to the market, there will be an ever-increasing need for them to differentiate themselves and set themselves apart from their competition. The best way for any company to differentiate itself is through advertising, and many of these "dotcoms" are looking for a captive Web-based audience to appeal to. As long as we see the emergence of a steady stream of new Internet start-ups, we can expect to see advertising supported models such as free PC-to-phone and even free advertising supported wireless services proliferate indefinitely.
A year later I realized I was very wrong about free VoIP. The concept of giving away free services for ads seemed to not be proliferating. Many companies offering free services such as Excite and Dialpad were struggling or just rapidly wiped away. A few bucked the trend such as Yahoo's portal and Microsoft's Hotmail. But there were few free services coming down the pike.
Then Skype came along giving us free p2p VoIP but paid connectivity to the PSTN. And now Yahoo!, Google and it seems everyone else is in the VoIP business. Furthermore the advertising supported model is very real as evidenced by what is happening with Google's stock price. So in the end there is a chance I will be correct.
You see in the crazed rush to differentiate someone is going to probably give VoIP to PSTN calling away once again.
But the point of this entry is not about who is right or wrong as much as it is about how a companies like DialPad and Net2Phone were real pioneers. Many of the concepts they invented are now being popularized by others. I am glad people like Erik are still covering the VoIP market and furthermore giving credit where it is due.
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