“HD-DVD is dead, and with it dies Microsoft’s aspirations to inject its proprietary software in media development. This is also a big strike against VC-1; despite being written into the Blu-Ray standard along with the ISO’s H.264, most Blu-Ray developers are moving toward H.264, which not only allows them to master HD discs, but also deliver mobile and downloadable versions using the same codec for playback on devices such as the PSP and iPod,” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for RoughlyDrafted.
“The death of HD-DVD also presents further evidence that Microsoft is increasingly incapable of pushing its own proprietary standards using its Windows monopoly. Building support for HD-DVD into Windows Vista did almost nothing to shore up support for the format, and tying it to the Xbox 360 similarly did little to push things toward the outcome Microsoft wanted,” Dilger writes.
“In the 90s, Microsoft maintained an invincible aura praised by loyal pundits; it defeated small companies, bought up rivals and destroyed them, slit its partners’ throats, and put startups out of business. It only ever gave the appearance of maintaining strong relationships with its partner companies,” Dilger writes. “However, in the last ten years, that strong facade has been destroyed by a series of very public failures [including]:”
• WinCE
• Windows XP
• Xbox 360
• Zune
Dilger writes, “The death of HD-DVD says more about Microsoft and its future than the general media seems to recognize. It’s not a format war, its a culture war between industry players working to advance the state of the art collectively in partnerships, and one company working to own everything while contributing very little. It’s not hard to see why Microsoft’s bruised and abused former partners are working to align themselves with open solutions rather than buy into more pain with technology tied to Microsoft. That’s very bad news for a company that exists solely as a licensee of third rate product ideas.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
Microsoft Bob !!!
Wow! Great article. I had no idea of the “back story”. This article puts into perspective Microsoft’s announcement today to be more open.
Peace.
Excellent article.
Finally, the best tech, on multiple levels, wins!
Tech writers and analysts are so full of BS that reading their ramblings is as entertaining as the Presidential Campaign, and about as meaningful. My own take I posted in my blog today:
http://chris-olson.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!EFEB4F5150FDCE3!382.entry
Former Mac User wrote at 8:47 pm:
Tech writers and analysts are so full of BS that reading their ramblings is as entertaining as the Presidential Campaign, and about as meaningful. My own take I posted in my blog today:
http://chris-olson.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!EFEB4F5150FDCE3!382.entry
Hey, FMU, I really wanted to read what you have posted in your blog, but clicking your link brought me to:
“Sorry, Spaces is temporarily unavailable at this time.
The service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”
Now, please remind me, who runs that spaces/live.com thing again? And by telling me twice that it’s temporarily unavailable, does that mean it’s temporarily unavailable? or does that somehow cancel itself out?
I hope to try again later.
OK, Chris, so I found out how to get into your blog even though it claimed the service was unavailable, so I guess they did cancel each other out.
Funny that in your post from December 18, 2007, entitled “Blu-ray vs HD DVD” you wrote:
“…Betamax was probably superior to VHS, but Sony forgot one thing – what the consumers wanted. Sony believed that having better quality recordings was the key to success, but it soon became clear that consumer desire was focused more intently on recording time and compatibility for easy transfer of data.
VHS was ‘good enough’ and it was cheaper.
“And that’s exactly what’s going to kill Blu-ray off eventually… If Sony was smart, instead of trying to compete with HD DVD they should target a different consumer segment with Blu-ray – the higher end – just like Apple does. Otherwise, there’s no way Blu-ray will ever compete with sub-$100 HD DVD players on the shelves at Walmart. Blu-ray’s days are numbered if Sony doesn’t change their tactics.
And today, you kicked off the post with “All the tech sites are buzzing over the recent Blu-ray/HD DVD fiasco, and it’s rather interesting to see these tech writers and analysts doing the ape-like beating on the chest thing proclaiming how insightful they were/are.”
Sounds like sour grapes for not only being wrong, but for being REALLY wrong and in short order. Hanging around Microsoft a bit too much, perhaps.
omg journalists are starting to wake up
scratch that, didnt realise it was RDM
“Money can’t buy everything…”
That’s not what Ballmer’s golden stitched toilet paper says.