“Following the departure of corporate VP Enrico Rodriguez, the company is merging Windows Media Center and Zune software groups into the same Interactive Entertainment Business group that handles the Xbox as well as all gaming,” Electronista reports. “The Mediaroom service for IPTV is also becoming a separate group within the Entertainment and Devices section.”
Electronista reports, “Microsoft has acknowledged that it plans to integrate Zune elements into Windows Mobile in the long term, but the most recent rumors would have it merge Xbox and Zune into Windows Mobile 7 and finally unify all its media efforts into a single platform.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Because merging a failed brand that has been a laughingstock since day one with a highly failure-prone (“Red Ring of Death” to the tune of billions of dollars) game console and cramming elements of each into a phone running Windows Mobile is a sure path to success.
Microsoft had better be very careful with Windows Mobile 7:
• We’ve been pushing the state-of-the-art in every facet of design… We’ve been innovating like crazy for the last few years on this and we’ve filed for over 200 patents for all of the inventions in iPhone. And we intend to protect them. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiling iPhone, January 9, 2007
• We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP, in which case we will go after them. We will not stand for having our IP ripped-off and we will use any weapons at our disposal [to stop it]. – Apple COO Tim Cook, January 21, 2009