HP dropping CE-like living room PCs
The long, arduous quest to put PCs in the heart of the living room hit another snag this week, with Hewlett-Packard deciding to drop its line of Digital Entertainment Centers.
A company representative confirmed a report by CE Pro that HP would be dropping the line of PCs, which were styled to resemble consumer electronics devices like stereo receivers or DVD players. The idea was that people would be more comfortable using a Media Center PC that looked like a device already in their living-room entertainment system.
But although sales of Media Center PCs have been solid, there's little evidence that people are actually using those PCs in the living rooms. Many are sold without TV tuners, making it harder to justify using one at the center of a digital entertainment network.
HP isn't getting out of the Media Center PC business, the representative said. Most of those capabilities are now built into Windows Vista, meaning that at some point all Windows PCs will be Media Center PCs. But HP is instead planning to focus on enhancing its
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
