Richard Tong, vice president of marketing and training for Microsoft's personal and business systems group, said this week that the company was working to integrate the computer with the television. The first step to this future, however, is to get TV tuners into PCs. Microsoft will support this transition with its Broadcast Architecture, which will be built into Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0.
"In the home, you will see much greater integration with \[TV\] video broadcast," Tong said. "Within the next year, most home PCs will have a \[TV\] tuner."
Using the Broadcast Architecture features in Windows 98, users will be able to switch back and forth between TV programs, the Internet, and software applications, all from the same PC.
"To write an application, you want no difference between Microsoft Word, Web applications, and video broadcasting," Tong said, explaining the company's desire to integrate TV with the PC. "\[This is\] one of the reasons we're making investments \[in\] cable companies."
