Intel will shortly push aside its “Intel Inside” logo in favor of (at least for the V//V line) “Leap Ahead.”
While we shouldn’t analyze logos like they were make-or-break decisions, after all, any logo slogan more positive than “This sucks” will work well enough provided its repeated enough, there is actually some correlation between the slogan and reality here.
What’s the leap? Well, what’s the purpose of V//V? It is, “You need a computer to manage your entertainment.” Period.
It’s quite a leap to expect the at least not too-unaverage person to go from a free remote to a $500-$1,000 box (even if the PC will also be used for “normal” purposes).
Why would someone possibly want to do that? Well, one very, very big reason why someone might is that trying to get a lot of set-alone boxes to play together manually is hard, often too hard, for people.
If a PC can remove the complications and hassles, that is the one and only reason why the average Joe would buy one.
However, “PCs” and “idiot-proof” are rarely found in the same sentence or paragraph, at least not without the company of that word “Not.”
Making PCs idiot-proof (hint: if you’re running Linux, or spend hours tweaking Windows, you’re not exactly in the best position to judge this) for the boob tube would indeed be a big leap. So far, the attempts to do so have been far from encouraging: from the standard of brain-deadness, it’s been more like leaping ahead, and off the cliff.
Unless/until Intel or anybody else (I think Apple is going to have something to say about this, too) can do that, make an entertainment PC a completely different experience than a PC experience, this will become just a niche market.
That’s what matters, not the slogan.
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