[64] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Mass marketing of CD-ROM: Philips bows out
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Walt Crawford)
Thu Apr 23 12:54:26 1992
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1992 11:26:53 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Walt Crawford <BR.WCC%RLG.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
News item from PC Week (4/20/92, page 138):
"Philips Consumer Electronics last week announced that
it is pulling out of the U.S. retail PC market..."
Possible significance: if you're hoping that mass-market
acceptance of CD-ROM is just around the corner (so that
drives will get even cheaper and faster, and more durable,
etc., thus helping libraries that depend on them), AND
if you recognize that Philips tried fairly hard to make
PCs with CD-ROMs succeed in the consumer marketplace, and
probably had the best shot of making that happen (there were
even Smothers Brothers TV ads for the Magnavox/HeadStart
systems at one point), then (IMHO) this announcement seems
to recognize failure. That leaves Sony's Laser Library,
which requires that you be willing to actually install
an interface card (not precisely the best mass-market
solution!).
Short-term significance: probably incredibly good prices
on remaining HeadStart CD-ROM PCs. Long-term significance:
As I said a year ago, "If Philips can't make it work,
who can?" My own guess: CD-ROM remains a niche marketplace;
a medium-sized one, but not mass-market. (Size is relative:
in the PC field, you've got journalists who in the same story
recognize that DR-DOS 6 has sold six million copies and
then dismiss it as "no more than a niche product." No, I
don't think CD-ROM will become quite that large a "niche."
Sure would be nice.)
