Is this the future of the next CD player

I think that what people have already begun to realize with these types of products is that computers have eliminated the need for CD players. Just like Ericrulifson said, even the best products out there right now that try to emulate CD players are limited in space. Nothing beats the add-on capability of hard-drives in computer towers or external drives for laptops, and most certainly NOTHING beats the graphic interface of a mouse and monitor for navigating your vast library of music. As people's music collections keep getting larger on their computers, they will realize that it makes the most sense to turn their PC into their stereo instead of trying to find new components that emulate what CD players do. This is why, in my estimation, CD players are a dying breed. Those of us who grasp this idea and have already started ripping lossless or high-bitrate at least are I think a step ahead of everybody else in terms of realizing this.

05-01-06: Ericrulifson
I look forward to something similar for large collections and audiophile sensibilities.

Red Wine Audio is offering mods for the Olive Symphony and Musica.

http://www.redwineaudio.com/Olive.html

I reckon the Squeezebox and music downloads is more like the next thing - not something that plays disks. It makes more sense to store music on a centralised server and play the music from a distributed clients. Music retail distribution via disks will survive for some time but having to root it out whenever you want to play it is silly.

JA gave the Olive high praise in the April issue of Stereophile.

"NOTHING beats the graphic interface of a mouse and monitor for navigating your vast library of music."

Some people don't want a a noisy PC/monitor in their listening room.

The Olives and Cambridge(it can handle external HDs or network to your PC's library of music) are just the start of these in the room devises. All those DVD recorders with HDs from the big name companies are music servers waiting to happen.