Article at a glance:

PCs vs. TVs

Companies are making major bets on building broadband applications. And rightly so: with broadband's residential penetration now reaching the tens of millions of households in the US and Europe, the industry could reach profitable scale as early as mid-2002. To be successful in this market, however, companies need a realistic view of the economics that underlie broadband applications, of the ways those applications will affect the industry's development, and of the size of the opportunities likely to emerge during the next few years.

The take-away

This article describes different economics for the broadband applications available on PCs and TVs, respectively, and for the companies—such as broadband access providers, game designers, movie studios, portals, and producers of interactive content—that bring these applications to consumers.