A short while ago my wife and I were considering what to do with our fairly extensive collection of movie DVDs and music CDs. Now, ours is a rather technically informed household, and my interest in technology roadmapping is sometimes called upon help to ensure future proofing of high technology gadgets. To this end I have created a roadmap for home entertainment systems which as doubled as a device to use in presentations on roadmapping methodologies. Using this roadmap, it became clear in 2004 that within a few years that the internet was likely to be the primary medium for home entertainment, and that WiFi networks were likely to be used extensively in the domestic environment for accessing collections of music and videos. I'm not talking about illegal usage here, just the technical mechanisms to access material we have already bought.
As time has passed it has become clear that the technical aspects of home entertainment have been easier to anticipate than the product design aspects, and the degree of integration possible has been a real surprise. For example, tinkering together a media server is an easy task with PC components, just add a home wireless network and for a £100 or so one can build a server that can hide in a cupboard, and allow access to media files from anywhere around the house.
However, the real surprise is how some manufacturers have succeeded in integrating this and even more functionality into a stylish packages that slip into the pocket and runs on batteries! If you've tried out products like the Apple i-touch or HTC Touch, you will know what I mean.
But it is the broader impacts on business that I have been pondering on. We buy CDs and DVDs as entertainment, not as collectables, so the technical solution suits our household and no doubt many others. Clearly there are new opportunities opening to supply entertainment as the "Digital Superhighway" talked about in the 1990s comes of age in the new millennium. The effects of these changes ripple out beyond the obvious direct impacts, and must surely alter the broader manufacturing community: Who could have forecast manufacturing models that make it possible to buy a high specification mobile media player that can hold our entire collection of audio CDs plus a high quality audio player for less than the cost of the shelving to hold the CDs?
1 comments:
Future-proofing of gadgets is one issue, and it probably means making them work for the next five years; less for a phone, more for a TV.
The other issue is future-proofing your digital entertainment data. Having bought a favourite film or piece of music, should you have to buy it again when technology changes? Digital Rights Management exists to protect the vendor, but it makes it harder to migrate purchased content from one machine to another... especially from a sickly machine, or a stolen one!
Is this the time for a new 'digital proof of purchase' to be proposed, allowing users to follow the spirit of copyright law, rather than the letter of the law as imposed by the technology of the day?
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