Media Center: ‘You’re Hired’

Although most Media Center PCs pass their days at home in the living room or study, a few have begun taking office jobs.

The desktop and notebook PCs, which come with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP Media Center Edition’s specialized user interface for handling multimedia and are operable via a remote control, were created with consumers in mind.

However, a small number of businesses have been purchasing the machines to handle multimedia in internal meetings or customer presentations, some PC makers say.

Corporations often spend extra to set up liven up front offices and meeting rooms, purchasing big-screen televisions, stylish computers and other technological accoutrements.

Thus, despite their consumer bent, companies using Media Center machines to help show videos or present other multimedia isn’t much of a stretch, those companies said.

John Samborski, vice president of Ace Computers, an Arlington Heights, Ill., computer maker, said he’s looking to offer Intel’s forthcoming Viiv-brand gear, which incorporates Media Center, as way to better tie together the audio-video equipment, including plasma TVs and projection screens, with the multimedia files and corporate presentations, including slide shows and PowerPoint sessions, his business customers make.

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“I’d like to see businesses adopt it for there use,” he said in a recent interview with eWEEK. “There is a tremendous demand out there for all of these functions in an office setting. Businesses want more than just a conference room, they want corporate Media Centers.”

Representatives at big-name Media Center PC makers Gateway Inc., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. all said the companies have no immediate plans to offer business Media Centers.

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