Microsoft SideShow — iPod Killer?
Just read an interesting article on Consumer Electronics Stock blog, it talks about SideShow (what used to be called auxiliary displays) and how they could be a route to unseat Apple’s domination of the music player world.
The piece explains that the displays are going to be more that just an extra displays on laptops they could be detachable devices with all your calender and contacts information on them that you can carry with you on the go.
It says the displays can also sync your music and video on the device and is an open platform for development.
This is where it gets interesting, the device does not have to be only on laptops, in fact at CES I saw a Silverstone PC running the display, and on Microsoft’s site it says they can be on “keyboards, LCD display casings, remote controls, and cell phones“, so the components of it could be part of a mp3 player or a cell phone and it could be Microsoft’s way of developing there own hardware personal media players (PMP) as has been rumoured
The article goes on to say
“If this platform brought tight integration between Vista and PMP’s, that would be really bad news for Apple. Apple has been selling iPods to legions of Windows users who buy the iPod for its slick design and ease of use and are willing to accept Apple’s closed system as a tradeoff. Users will no longer need to make that tradeoff if the integration between Vista and the PMP is well done using SideShow.”
The combination of Vista, Windows Media Player 11 and these devices could really unseat the ipod and its closed system
Interestingly they say that the guts of the SideShow are based on the same guts of the ipod (Portalplayer’s (PLAY) ‘Preface’ chipset.)
LINK