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Jay Greene writes that Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, is pinning much on the new breed of Microsoft-powered portable media centres, such as the Creative Zen.

In an interview in January, Apple CEO Steve Jobs argued that the success of the iPod could not be repeated with video, not least because he does not think that people 'have a burning desire

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to watch video on tiny little screens'.

Gates, as you might expect, disagrees: 'I guess Steve's kids just listen to Bach and Mozart. But mine, they want to watch Finding Nemo,' adding with faux-innocence, 'I don't know who made that, but it's a really neat movie.'

Greene appears to agree with Jobs, explaining the logistical barriers to getting video content on to the player.

'Their biggest drawback is simply that they're inconvenient. Users can copy video only from a PC, not directly from a TV or DVD player. IDC analyst Roger Kay estimates that fewer than one per cent of the world's computers have the TV tuner cards that are required to copy TV programming;' and there is no guarantee that TV will remain free to copy.

The alternative is to get content from the Internet, but as things stand Microsoft has just two providers.

He concludes that 'Gates has grand plans for how Microsoft can change the world of digital media. But he'll have to do more work to get the company's strategy in tune with its ambition.'