With technical standards development and consumer education challenges for vendors still looming large but becoming less burdensome, media networking will continue to grow rapidly through 2009, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com).
Much of the growth will be driven by PC vendors, who are rolling out media center PCs that fit the living room in terms of style and function.
A recent report by In-Stat found the following:
— The media center PCs are still considered premium consumer PCs, but In-Stat expects that their media hub features will become standard on almost all PCs within the next three years.
— Despite the market’s growth, many technical issues will continue to persist. For example, the next-generation wireless standard, 802.11n, has not been finished and will not be complete until 2006.
— Outside of the technical readiness of the standards enabling media networking, there is still the need to create the awareness and demand for these products among end users.
