The World Wide Web has expanded the Internet's appeal far beyond the world of computer geeks, but it hasn't pushed the Net far beyond the computer.
In particular, consumers have turned up their noses at "Internet appliances," or stripped-down devices that offer a simple route to the Web. Electronics companies keep trying, but their products keep flopping--witness the quick demise of three of the five Net appliances that Tech Times reviewed in February.
Undaunted, Sony is making a new foray into the field, offering a slick computer-size device called the eVilla Network Entertainment Center. It's the second go-around for Sony, which tried with limited success to sell Microsoft WebTV units. Compaq, meanwhile, has released an updated version of its Microsoft-powered iPaq Home Internet Appliance.
Both try to eliminate the most cumbersome, frustrating and intimidating features of computers without sacrificing the Internet's most popular functions, such as shopping, watching video clips, sending e-mail and listening to Web radio stations. Despite some noteworthy limits, they succeed in providing an easy on-ramp to the Web and a sample of its most popular resources.
What the two devices do best, though, is promote products and services affiliated with Microsoft or Sony. In Compaq's case, the easy-to-use package of news, entertainment, local information and shopping is drawn entirely from sites owned or affiliated with Microsoft--not a surprising feature, given that it's built around the MSN online service.
The eVilla's preset Web sites aren't quite so focused on a single company's products, but Sony's game, music, movie and TV properties all are featured prominently. And with both devices, users are fed a steady stream of ads for products and services affiliated with the two companies.
That's much like the experience that computer users have on America Online, the planet's most popular Internet service. But the eVilla and the Home Internet Appliance impose more limits on users than a computer equipped with AOL does, largely because they don't have the power or flexibility of a computer.
Technophobes and Internet ingenues wouldn't know what they were missing, but that's not the intended audience for these devices, officials from Sony and Microsoft say. Instead, their main targets are homes that don't have enough computers to meet all the demand for time on the Net.
Sony eVilla
