DVD facing an early grave?

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"The DVD will be short lived," ... "This kind of video was a passive exercise. Today things need to be much more interactive."

At least, that is what Serge Tchuruk, chief executive of Alcatel, said at the opening of the Alcatel Forum in Paris. According to him, cheap and widely available broadband services will kill the short lived life of the DVD. This statement is in line with the recent price drops in broadband accounts.

He added that, while the price of broadband had halved in the past two years, capacity has increased fivefold. This is going to drive a wave of data services, both mobile and fixed, through what Tchuruk described as "user-centric broadband".

In my opinion Mr. Tchuruk has a point, but I don't think it will kill off traditional storage media such as the DVD or the upcoming next generation storage media (Blu-ray, HD-DVD or even the holographic HVD). Think about it, 60% of today's internet population is still on slow dial-up or ISDN. Ofcourse this percentage will drop quickly, but do you really think the movie studios will miss out on the market who is not capable of streaming high definition video live into their living room? I don't think so. If you have a different opinion, or infact, any opinion, please discuss this in our forum.