The wired home sounds great. Home entertainment systems bring us streaming video, on-demand movies, TiVo'd TV, the latest music downloads, games, and more. Home wireless networks let Junior send IM on his notebook upstairs while Dad pays the bills on the desktop downstairs and Sis shops on iTunes in the living room. Home-control systems let us set thermostats, night-lights, and more from a central PC. But there's one little problem. Getting devices from multiple vendors to work on a network is way too hard for the average educated consumer.
I've seen this (and suffered) first-hand. After I read the umpteenth article about how easy it is to set up a wireless network, I bought a wireless router and tried to connect my desktop and notebook computers. Simple, right? No. Many hours later, I gave up, and ended up returning the gear to the store. A few months later, I tried again, this time hiring a local technician who assured me he was a networking expert. He finally got the darned thing working, but it was touch-and-go for a while there, and he confessed that it was one of the most difficult jobs he had ever done. Whatever happened to easy?
I'm not the only one complaining. According to this article on news.com, speakers at the Digital Living Room conference this week in San Francisco, were singing the blues, too. Don Norman, a co-founder of the design-consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group, confessed to being unable to set up his home network. (That makes me feel a bit better.)
What's to be done? Vendors must work together. How likely is that? Not very, said Gartner analyst Van Baker, a panelist at the conference. He pointed out that vendors can't even agree on a standard for power plugs.
Meantime, there's great demand for local computer guys to set up home wireless and entertainment networks. If they can figure them out!
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