It's been sitting there, right in front of us. All the electronic, analog, single function devices; TV's, VCR's, Radios and all the other appliances of the pre-Internet era.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas showcased the people and the products that will change all that. When reading the following excerpt from the CES website (cesweb.org), you can see the outlines of the emerging trends:

• Digital, wireless, network accessible, small, easily used device designs
• Seamless context switching between all Media and all PC functions
• Functional convergence into a single device using the PC as the control center for Network Data, TV, PVR, DVD,
Games, FM Radio, MP3, Personal Video and Pictures; the all singing, all dancing, digital mobile device.

Moore's Law is alive and well, and what that means is that nearly all the gadgets presented at CES are available at relatively less cost per function than their predecessors; lower costs translates to broader markets and a larger installed base. Moore's Law states that every 18 months the density of compomnents on a chip doubles. This has always meant that prices decrease accordingly.

This will produce a turf battle that is brewing between the device manufacturers and the content owners. Yes, they will appear to be cooperating. The PR smoke screen will lead you to believe that they are working together "for the good of the customer." But that will only last until the joker in the deck is played in US markets.

The joker is the rapid ramp-up in features available on the Hand-Held digital, wireless-network-connected devices.

Why is this important? Because the Hand-held is the device of the decade and will surpass the PC. PC's arn't dead, they will continue, but many of their functions will porph into a wireless, mobile set of devices. The major reasons are:

• Mobile Hand-held trumps Desk-top PC's in, weight, power-reqired, lifestyle compatibility combined with full telephony functions.

• The Hand-held price point is a minimum of one-third of a PC. This translates into a greatly expanded market. This in turn, creates a momentum of its own that encourages smaller, niche developers to venture into the market, again giving the Hand-held additional bang-for-the-buck.

We expect all Media, Entertainment and Internet access to be available on a Hand-held within the next few years in the USA. (GSM/3G devices with these capabilities are already selling rapidly in Japan & Europe.)

When PC, Internet, Media, and Entertainment collide in a Hand-held form factor, at a $3-400 price point, most of the margin will be in content delivery and everybody wants to cash in. This places device manufacturers, software vendors, and Internet carriers in competition with Studios, Music Distributors, Game Manufacturers, News and TV Network purveyors.

It will become abundantly clear that each one of these industries wants to feed off of your wallet and the reality is, there isn't enough of your disposable income to go around. The fight will take place in super slow-mo, but you - the Prosumer - is going to have a field day. You are in control of the outcome and you pick the survivors because the Network is the stage on which this battle will take place and the competition for your patronage will be fierce.

So read the following with these thoughts in mind. It is all good news for you.

"Keeping in theme with seamless access to content, Gates switched gears to discuss briefly the concept of seamless entertainment. Central to this concept is the ability of various entertainment devices such as DVD players, audio players and digital imaging technology to interconnect throughout the home via the MSN Media Center.

Playing off that concept, Gates introduced Windows Media Vision HD, a powerful piece of technology allowing content available on your PC to be transmitted into high-definition. The stage then was set for a demonstration of a new Portable Media Center allowing consumers to transfer their movies, music, photos, and other content from a PC to a portable device the size of a wallet. Gates briefly touched on the Xbox Media Center Extender Kit that allows the Xbox to connect to a PC and access content for playback through the gaming console.

Gates' keynote complimented a morning presentation by Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach at the first-ever Digital Games Summit, produced by iHollywood Forum in conjunction with CES. Bach spoke of consumers' digital lifestyle wish-list where people demand access to the content they own whenever and wherever they please.

The approach to meeting this demand, Bach explained, is to utilize the PC as the gateway to the home to store, manage and access content anywhere in the home in any format. As Gates later reinforced in this speech, Bach stated software and services will help make this easier to accomplish...news announced by exhibitors already at CES illustrates the industry's movement to portable digital content."

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