James Delahunty
27 Jun 2005 23:11
Microsoft and Toshiba have announced that both companies will strengthen joint development of consumer electronics goods and consider working together on HD-DVD players that will play one of the competing formats for the next generation format of DVDs. Both companies have been working together for years now. Toshiba is the third largest notebook PC maker in the world. Both companies reached an agreement back in May that would allow each company to use the others patents on computer and digital electronics technology.
Both companies are now considering working together on making HD-DVD players that would run on Windows software; a move that could bring down the development costs for the players, Toshiba hopes. "We think the agreement will have practical benefits such as lower costs and shorter development times," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida said at a news conference in Tokyo. Bill Gates was also in attendance at the conference.
Toshiba hopes to be able to provide HD-DVD players for the Japanese and U.S. markets by the last quarter of 2005 which would play back the HD-DVD format backed by Toshiba. Sony Corp. is supporting the Blu-Ray Disc format, which stores higher capacity than HD-DVD (HD-DVD holds about 30GB, whereas Blu-Ray holds about 50GB). However, the HD-DVD camp claims that their format will be a much cheaper option for the entertainment and software industries to adopt.
According to Bill Gates however, Microsoft still has not taken any sides in the battle for the next generation DVD format.
Source:
Reuters