Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has been known in the last three of four years as a "me too" PC manufacturer. Sure, it was the world's largest PC maker until rival Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) stole that crown in 2006 and hasn't looked back. When Dell founder Michael Dell came back to the CEO spot in January 2007, his resultant changes has given Dell the push it needed. Some changes, though, are just plain head-scratching.Unlike the gutsy and excellent move back onto the retail shelf, Dell announced last week that it would allow DVD-quality downloads from partner CinemaNow to be downloaded and then burned to a special "Qflix" DVD hardware drive. This new drive will apparently sell for $120 and will be available as an option on most newer Dell laptop models. The question is this: does Dell really see a market need for yet another DVD standard to allow the 10-step process of getting digital content from a partner to a DVD disc for some kind of archival purpose by any of its customers?
The point here is that Dell wants to be the customer's source for downloading actual DVD content (complete with menus, alternate audio and all the other DVD goodies) to your PC. Unless you're extremely patient, I can only imagine the length of time it will take to "download" all this to a Dell PC. Perhaps a workday? The point is that until we have a huge increase in broadband internet speeds in the U.S. for the consumer market and consumers expect functionality like this to be free, something like this will flop except for the early adopter and geek crowd. But hey, that's never stopped a PC maker from exploring odd niche product categories before, right?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-22-2008 @ 11:16PM
ekrabs said...
Head-scratching is puttting it mildly. I'm thinking more along the lines of "Insulting". Why would I want to pay extra for a proprietary piece of hardware that I don't need for a problem I don't have?
Sure, I realize this is a problem for content providers that want to protect their intellectual property, but please don't pass the buck to the consumer!
Mr. Dell, I see this failing spectacularly. Please focus on subnotebooks and Linux instead. Thank you.
9-26-2008 @ 3:11PM
Bruce Crock said...
I`m a product manager at Sonic (the company that developed Qflix). We thought it was important to provide a sense of why we believe Qflix is relevant to consumers and its role in the entertainment ecosystem.
We believe the burn to DVD feature serves two important purposes. First, it fills a gap in the digital entertainment value chain by enabling consumers to view digital downloads beyond the PC (some services enable consumers to move content onto mobile devices, but not easily move it into the entertainment venue of choice - the living room). Second, it allows consumers to archive and therefore protect their digital entertainment purchases.
Burning to DVD as a stand alone item may not be for everyone; however, we believe that when - as in the case of CinemaNow - it is combined with other playback options (i.e. pc, game systems, mobile devices), it provides consumers the ultimate in entertainment flexibility.
I should point out that the plan with Qflix is not to create `another DVD standard`. Qflix-drives are essentially standard recorders (supporting standard DVD read/write functions). The only difference is that they enable movies to be recorded via special Qflix-media. We don`t believe the need for specialized media will overly burden or confuse consumers, especially once Qflix becomes a standard feature in pre-loaded drives.
One last item to note, with a broadband connection (which is now in 50% of US homes), consumers using the CinemaNow service, can begin watching the movie they purchased within 30 seconds – and record it to DVD in less than two hours.
9-26-2008 @ 3:14PM
Bruce Crock said...
I’m a product manager at Sonic (the company that developed Qflix). We thought it was important to provide a sense of why we believe Qflix is relevant to consumers and its role in the entertainment ecosystem.
We believe the burn to DVD feature serves two important purposes. First, it fills a gap in the digital entertainment value chain by enabling consumers to view digital downloads beyond the PC (some services enable consumers to move content onto mobile devices, but not easily move it into the entertainment venue of choice– the living room). Second, it allows consumers to archive and therefore protect their digital entertainment purchases.
Burning to DVD as a stand alone item may not be for everyone; however, we believe that when - as in the case of CinemaNow - it is combined with other playback options (i.e. pc, game systems, mobile devices), it provides consumers the ultimate in entertainment flexibility.
I should point out that the plan with Qflix is not to create “another DVD standard”. Qflix-drives are essentially standard recorders (supporting standard DVD read/write functions). The only difference is that they enable movies to be recorded via special Qflix-media. We don’t believe the need for specialized media will overly burden or confuse consumers, especially once Qflix becomes a standard feature in pre-loaded drives.
One last item to note, with a broadband connection (which is now in 50% of US homes), consumers using the CinemaNow service, can begin watching the movie they’ve purchased within 30 seconds – and record it to DVD in less than two hours.
Thanks,
Bruce Crock, Sonic Solutions