So says Jeffery Raj, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Cuzzy Advanced Convergence Laboratories Sdn. Bhd. After three years of research and development, countless arguments with his board of directors and his fair share of start-up hiccups, Raj now nearly grins with what his company is about to do. Make the idiot box smart.

"People don't think twice about buying a television," he says.

The Malaysian-Indian leans back into the bucket-seated couch at his showroom in Kuala Lumpur, and smirks. "But they do mull over the purchase of a PC," he continues.

An imposing figure, standing at over six-feet tall, with a goatee and a welcoming smile, Raj's company is poised to break into the international market with a product that promises to change the way consumers see computing; the way companies model their businesses and how families interact.

PC penetration rates in Malaysia are low - only 11-percent at last count - one of the lowest in the region. Raj believes he has something that will change that: what he has christened the D-Box.

Raj founded Cuzzy in the United States in 1994; in 1997, he sold it to Cottage Software Inc., and moved back to Malaysia, and by 1998, had set up the now MSC-Status company in Kuala Lumpur. His core work in the U.S. was hardware; making set-top boxes that would eventually evolve into PCTVs - Personal Computer Televisions. He likes to call it Living room Computing. All he needed was a platform to launch it on; the release of the X-Box by Microsoft served the purpose.

Whilst Microsoft claims that the X-Box is a gaming console, Raj insists that it runs on a PC platform. He believes that Microsoft has refrained from calling it such, because of the conflict it would cause with their biggest customers: PC manufacturers.

"Marketing the X-Box as a PC doesn't fit their business model," says Raj. And if one were to take a long, hard look at the X-Box, Raj's assertion certainly seems to hold water. To suddenly become a hardware manufacturer would turn away Microsoft's biggest Windows OS customers. Cuzzy, on the other hand, has nothing to lose. But they took it a step further.

The D-Box is a PC. It's a PC that belongs in your living room, and is hooked up to your television. It's broadband ready. It surfs the Net, checks your email, and plays games from PlayStation, DreamCast and soon, Nintendo. It records from TV broadcasts or from your VCR. Hook up PC peripherals like a scanner and printer, and it becomes productive.

"The idiot box has just become smart," smiles Raj.

Stealth Productivity

Trying to convince someone to "please, learn to use a computer," can be as tough as getting a cat to do a cartwheel. People - the older generation, especially - who have never needed a computer are reluctant to embrace what they see as a complicated device that is always telling them what to do, and how to do it. Even the clerisy is apprehensive.

The term "stealth productivity", coined by Raj, means learning through entertainment. Cuzzy has taken every Asian's favourite past time - watching TV - and turned into an educational experience. Sooner or later, couch potatoes will want to use the D-Box for something; curiosity gets them better of us sooner or later, and as Raj says: 'If you build it, they will come.' (His motto in business from the movie Field of Dreams).

Living room computing will also bring families closer together. In today's society, where the young sit at desktop PCs and either chat or play games, while the older gather round the little black box in the hall, the digital divide is becoming harder to overcome. Something like the D-Box bridges that gap, and brings the young and old together, whether they like it or not.

Bring the power of computing into the living room is not a new concept. But it does ruin business models based on selling consumers multiple appliances - a VCD player, and gaming console, a personal computer, a HDTV (the D-Box uses a decoder that makes it compatible to digital broadcasting when it comes to this region). The D-Box, with technology designed by Raj himself, overcomes the barriers to living room computing.

"It's the most responsible thing we can do for the consumer," enthuses Raj. "We summarise it; why have so many appliances, when you can have just one that does everything?"

Cuzzy = Convergence

"Malaysia needs an international brand that people can trust," says Raj, seriously. The United States has its Ford, Kodak and Xerox. Japan has its Sony and Toyota. "We need a technology capable of building that international name".

After many hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in research and development, Cuzzy believes it has it (the technology). After a host of unique products like the Diva Series PCs - built and designed for the feminine gender - Cuzzy is going global. Taking the D-Box to countries where HDTV is already pretty much standard like the U.S., in Europe and Australia is his next move. Raj does not intend to use third parties in foreign markets, but intends to set up shop direct.

The "heart and soul" of the D-Box is the PC platform. Shipping with Windows 98, the D-Box is more - much more - than just a gaming console or a PC. It's a product of convergence, a term very close to Raj's heart. It's also where the name Cuzzy came from.

"Cuzzy means converging telecommunications, computing and broadcasting," says Raj. He one day hopes to have convergence associated to Cuzzy the way copying is associated to Xerox.

"No, no… Cuzzy is convergence," corrects Raj.

I stand corrected.