“When Microsoft invested a cool $1 billion in Comcast more than eight years ago, Chairman Bill Gates talked up a grand vision for a world of connected PCs and TVs. Since then, his company’s tentacles have spread in all directions in hot pursuit, acquiring WebTV, launching the Xbox video-game console and Media Center PC, and creating a new platform called Microsoft TV IPTV, or Internet Protocol TV,” Ronna Abramson reports for TheStreet.com. “And yet, the digital living room still remains a thing of the future — an affliction of sorts for Microsoft, given the vast sums it has spent trying to realize that vision. Though Microsoft has misstepped, other factors have postponed the arrival of the connected home.”
“‘There’s an opportunity bigger than Windows … if they [Microsoft] can make it work,’ says Steve Perlman, who heads tech and media incubator Rearden. That’s because the universe of television sets — an estimated 250 million in the U.S. alone — is far greater than that of PCs, where Windows dominates, says Perlman,” Abramson reports. “Cable companies aren’t flocking to Microsoft’s IPTV service because they’re afraid of Microsoft strong-arming the user experience as it’s done on the PC, and they want as much as of the tens of billions of dollars they spent on their current networks as possible. AT&T and Verizon, however, are jumping on the bandwagon, looking for new revenue to supplant their maturing wireline businesses. ‘The DSL guys have all the motivation in the world to innovate because telephony is being absolutely destroyed by Internet phones and cell phones,’ Perlman says. ‘It’s do-or-die for them at this point.'”
“‘If there’s one guy who is going to try to put everything together … Steve and his team have one of the unique opportunities,’ Tim Bajarin, president of tech consultancy Creative Strategies, said of Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a recent digital living room conference. ‘Look at the Front Row interface they created — you can see digital living room written all over it,’ he added, referring to Apple’s interface for viewing digital media. And then, of course, there’s Apple’s huge success with music and recent deals to sell video content from NBC Universal at its iTunes music store,” Abramson reports.
Full article here.
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MS has had a plenty big head start and have done next to nothing with it. That’s what happens to a company who really isn’t that innovative. When they are first to market with something, it isn’t going to be that good. They are better off sticking to the gameplan they’ve been following for years: wait until Apple does it then rip it off.
What if the mini was not made into the MediaMac? What if Front Rown were released for the iPod instead? Everything is in place. The remote has that wasted menu button on it. Come on. Apple does almost everything based on aesthetics. Do you think they would have left that menu button on the iPod remote if they weren’t going to use it at some point?
Microsoft has a similar plan as Apple or anyone else.
Apple is using its computers, gadgets and software to bring the content to the living room.
Microsoft is doing a similar thing, but using the Xbox instead of the computer. It is doubtful that Microsoft can pull it off with Xbox. People think of Xbox as a game console not a media center.
Right now Apple is being held up by lack of chips from Intel or they would have probably already introduced the macminimediacenter or mmmc.
Imagine if you could go direct to the internet with your iPod. Download direct to the iPod. No need for a computer as the in-between….
Don’t forget the additional $8 Billlion that Paul Allen spent personally buying cable companies and another $4 billion on digital content delivery schemes that didn’t work.
Microsoft wasn’t the first to try to tackle the living room with a home computer. Commodore tried creating/entering such a market nearly 14 years ago with CDTV (Commodore Dynamic Total Vision), which delivered an Amiga with living room essentials, though DVDs and Video CDs were non existent at the time, Interactive CDs and other neat software was available, making the CDTV a nice start into the race for the living room.
http://www.cdtv.org.uk/
Wow… MacConvert hit on something important above. Imaging FrontRow operating from a new iPod – perfect! I already take my iPod photo with me to family events to hook up to a TV to show pictures of the kids, etc. Now with video too, this is a perfect solution. Of course, it would also work from your Mac (or be built into a soon to be released MacTV).
Don’t forget, folks ,that the TV industry is just finishing with a huge migration to digital (HD, digital broadcast, multicasting). A big part of this is the ability to broadcast data (over the air or through cable). Every single person who buys a new digital set and decides to receive an HD signal has a difficult and expensive choice to make in the type of receiver, etc. Apple could make this a simple choice if they were to include some type of digital/HD tuner/receiver in a future box.
In the not-too-distant future, everyone will need to buy some type of converter, because their old analog sets are not going to work. Apple could be in on the ground floor of one of the most explosive opportunities in consumer electronics if they would come up with a simple, unified, and fairly inexpensive solution to the digital home.
Apple will launch it when their vision of the universal media device/set up offers the sort of experience and performance that matches the hype (well nearly anyway). That is always after people are expecting it to happen. A half baked launch is worse than no launch at all. Look at media centre to show how not to do it. Seriously who wants the home’s most capable computer tied up in everything but its base function. Either it has to be a cheaper computer like the mini though making that truly capable within a given price range is difficult as things stand, or a devoted media device that has wow appeal has lesser computer capability which helps keep costs down. However even that won’t be cheap. That is changing however. The technology involved is coming down in price while going up in capability and with seriously expensive flat screen digital hi def tvs becoming popular and will be the norm very soon the time when Apple will undoubtedly open up this market is not too far off.
Apple could be in on the ground floor of one of the most explosive opportunities in consumer electronics if they would come up with a simple, unified, and fairly inexpensive solution to the digital home.
That is exactly correct!
Sure I’m a techie, but still have a relatively old-fashioned analog TV with analog cable. Why? No one has shown me a clear compelling case for upgrading. When I have looked into the subject, all I find is confusion. No clear standard exists at this time. So I sit back with my money in my wallet waiting for the dust to settle.
If Apple is smart (and we assume they are) they too are waiting for the technical standards situation to stabilize, and then they will offer their solution.
Why do you think they have been creating all the new Apple stores? When the Appledigital TV solution hits the market, it will be available at the Apple store in the mall near you.
MW=series Any Apple video solution has to let me watch the World Series as it is played.
Cable companies aren’t flocking to Microsoft’s IPTV service because they’re afraid of Microsoft strong-arming the user experience as it’s done on the PC…
Who’d have think it
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Apple has done a GREAT job in releasing incrementally new features into the iPod/iTunes universe. The computer is migrating quite rapdily over to the Intel world. Apple has a vision and a plan. And they are slowly building the necessary momentum and partnerships to make this happen. 4 years ago, Apple was a “has-been.” Let’s all have faith in Apple’s corporately planned future.
MS has had plenty of lead and they pissed away like a drunken sailor on leave in Hong Kong.
They bought Web-TV a great brand name, drove it out into a pasture and parked it to rust.
If MS had chosen to make cool little dedicated living room hardware boxes that delivered Web and Video content, they would not be losing money on every one of them like they currently are with X-Box.
They could have had the Tivo features and more. They could have established a decent ip-codec standard. They could have been smart enough to realize nobody wants a PC pile of crap sitting in the family room next to the big screen (wives are just not going to put up with a hodge-podge of goofy beige hardware and another monitor screen too).
They could have but they didn’t, because they’re MicroSoft and they didn’t have someone to COPY.
With all the great engineers they have, THEY DON’T HAVE A CLUE.
Steve Jobs not only wrote the clue book he now has the resources to turn great ideas into useful products that make life better and more fun.
“Cable companies aren’t flocking to Microsoft’s IPTV service because they’re afraid of Microsoft strong-arming the user experience as it’s done on the PC…”
True. But when it comes down to a choice between M$ and the forthcoming Apple/Disney/Pixar monopolistic FairPlay juggernaut, they’ll have to reconsider their position.
The telling phrase was “… if they [Microsoft] can make it work”
What must really upset Bill Gates is that people always doubt his ability to deliver a solution that works perfectly, but when Steve Jobs announces something everybody assumes that it will work flawlessly.
Of course, today is a good day to laugh at Bill Gates. It’s exactly two years since Bill Gates announced that spam will be a thing of the past within two years. Nobody believed him at the time.
My e-mail account today has so far received 47 instances of Bill failing to deliver on his absurd promises. Fortunately Apple’s Mail system has a very effective junk filtering to deal with all that spam – every single one coming from a Windows computer.
FTA: There’s an opportunity bigger than Windows … if they [Microsoft] can make it work …
If pigs can fly, then …
Gee, I should have known Microsoft was behind Comcast… a typically high priced, mediocre solution to cable TV.
Why can’t I pick the channels I’d like and pay for those each month, rather than pay around $60 and be lumped with about 500 channels, of which only 20 or so I regularly watch*?
That’s what customers really want, morons. Oh wait, that’s right, they’re out there to screw you for every penny they can, while offering a “solution for everyone.” The business model and product seem eerily similar to Microsoft’s offerings.
* The thing is, I don’t need the foreign language channels (I don’t speak Spanish or Chinese so why am I paying for them?) and I don’t like sports, so there’s another 100 channels I don’t need. Of course, the stuff I do watch is bundled with a heap of other crap. The first person who delivers a user definable solution (which is cheaper than what I’m currently paying) will get my money in future… even if this includes direct downloading of TV programs. Here’s hoping Steve Jobs can work something out.