Text 16470, 181 rader
Skriven 2007-02-24 09:50:26 av mike (1:379/45)
Ärende: Windows XP Media Center Edition vs Apple TV
===================================================
From: mike <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/841EDBB5-1245-42AD-A733-B9B2995
7347B.html


[Lots of good pics and links in the original article]



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Apple critics tried hard to pretend that this year’s Macworld was a huge
disappointment because no new Macs or iPods were trotted out on stage. Of
course, these same critics have also long lambasted Apple for not offering a
"true videoö iPod, nor a handheld mobile, nor a Media Center Mac, nor other
copies of Microsoft strategies.

What they failed to catch at Macworld was that Apple has leapfrogged
Microsoft's consumer electronics efforts with just three simple product
introductions:

•the iPhone makes an absolute joke out of both Windows Mobile phones and
Windows Media players
•the new AirPort Extreme offers an obliterating alternative to Windows Home
Server at a fraction of the cost •the new Apple TV slingshots a rock right into
the forehead of Microsoft’s Media Center PC

Apple recently commented that it would not be immediately releasing any more
new product categories, so it’s time to sit back and watch the fireworks.

Yesterday's Windows Home Server vs AirPort Extreme pitted Microsoft's announced
plans for a home server--due in the second half of year--against Apple's
currently shipping AirPort Extreme.

In contrast to Microsoft’s home server plans first officially unveiled in
January, Microsoft’s Media Center PC was first introduced back in 2002, and its
origins date back even further.

Introducing Windows XP Media Center Edition At CES 2002, the project was known
under the code name Freestyle; it was later delivered as Windows XP Media
Center Edition. Like the new Windows Home Server, it is only available bundled
with a new PC from select OEMs.

While sold as an "edition" of Windows, it is essentially just a standard
Windows XP that includes Media Center, an application designed specifically for
use on TV screens, using large fonts and simpler navigation that can be
controlled via a remote control rather than a mouse and keyboard. The Media
Center app handles:

•presentation of user photos, music, and video stored locally on the Media
Center PC or on a network drive •viewing TV from antenna, cable, or satellite,
using one or more hardware TV tuners
•acting as a Tivo-like DVR to record TV to a hard drive, burn to DVD, or copy
to a portable player
•streaming TV or recorded video to an Xbox 360 or other Media Center Extender
to watch on a different TV

A Swing and a Miss
Despite valiant efforts to improve upon the product with annual updates,
Windows Media Center PCs aren't flying off the shelves. It's easy to guess why:
they offer little more than other DVRs, but cost a lot more.

The basic problem is that when Microsoft visualizes a solution to a problem,
it's always a PC running Windows.

That's often a bad assumption, because PCs running Windows are not all that
great at being general purpose computers. Pitting them against custom designed
solutions is like throwing a stray mutt in a cage match against a Presa Canario
and a pit bull: hello, gruesome third place!

What is really interesting about Microsoft’s Media Center lead balloon is not
its failure over the last five years, but rather the five years of development
that proceeded it: a product called WebTV.

The Fall of WebTV: Nothing Learned
One might think Microsoft would have learned something after buying up WebTV
Networks in 1997 and destroying the company and its product. One would be
wrong.

The WebTV startup was founded just two years earlier in 1995, and was made up
largely of employees from Apple and its General Magic spin off. The concept was
to deliver a sophisticated set top box with Internet web browsing in the form
of a low cost Network Computer that could download software directly from WebTV
servers.

The device itself was originally a diskless box with 2 MB of RAM, a 64-bit RISC
processor, a TV tuner, a modem to download programming schedules, video support
for adapting computer graphics for display on a standard TV, and simplified
navigation to allow users to browse the web without needing a mouse.

Just months after assuring WebTV employees the company would never to sell out
to Microsoft, founder Steve Perlman announced to employees that he had, along
with investors, sold out to Microsoft.

Many of its 250 employees protested, and Microsoft-hater Sun challenged the
deal but it went though anyway; Microsoft took over the project with the
proviso that at least 80% of the company's engineers stay on board.

Under Microsoft, WebTV continued as a subsidized box sold under a subscription
plan. Signing up long term users ended up being nearly impossible, and the
churn of short term subscribers meant the company was losing money handing out
free hardware and never recouping enough subscription fees to keep it going.

In its typical crisis management style, Microsoft first rebranded WebTV as MSN
TV--change the name, forget the failure!--then converted the box into a
Celeron-based PC running WinCE, called MSN TV2--if nothing else works, start
from the beginning: a PC running Windows!

That left Microsoft still selling an expensive box at a loss, dependent upon
subscription revenues. Even worse, now that it was just another PC, crackers
found out how to install free software on the box, turning the MSN TV2 into a
Microsoft hardware subsidy for Linux users. Doh!

In parallel with converting the WebTV into a money pit PC as a set top box,
Microsoft put its WebTV engineers to work on the Xbox, and created another
stripped down PC to sell at a loss. Doh!

As both projects burned up billions of dollars, the company decided to instead
apply the same technology to work on a full size PC, and salvage WebTV as a
component of Windows.

Hey PC Lackeys, Make Us Rich
Rather than going out of business selling subsidized PCs with expensive HDTV
tuners and fast enough hardware to process and record video, Microsoft
announced Freestyle as a specialized version of Windows that OEMs could bundle
on their own hardware and sell themselves.

This attempted to shift all the risk to PC makers, a strategy that had worked
for Windows in the 90s, when PC makers fought each other to the death.
Regardless of the outcome, both the victors and the vanquished paid Microsoft
for Windows software licenses.

By converting MSN TV into Windows Media Center, Microsoft realized that the PC
making stooges could lose all the money competing over sales of new TV-centric
PCs, allowing Microsoft to safely return to its easy profiteering as a software
slumlord.

Competition Gets in the Way
Without any competition, Windows Media Center might have had a chance. However,
cable and satellite companies didn't see any need to sell their subscribers on
Windows Media Center PCs when they could more profitably sell DVR boxes of
their own.

Home users have to go out of their way to buy the relatively expensive Windows
Media Center PC.


Existing Windows users can't upgrade to new hardware and buy the software off
the shelf, they have to buy a whole new PC. It would actually be quite
difficult for Microsoft to support any random TV tuner hardware users might dig
up, so selling Windows Media Center as a package deal makes sense.

However, it results in a product pitted against direct competition: embedded
set top boxes like the Tivo and cable companies' own house branded gear, as
well as open source projects such as Myth TV, which allow skilled users to
build their own DVR-based PC from parts.

Microsoft hates competition, and for good reason. It's a poor competitor.

¨Por qué no?
Why buy a whole new PC just to play video, photos, and music from a computer on
a living room TV? Why not just buy a simple media extender relay device?

As long as you're buying a media extender, why not throw in wireless? And why
not Wireless N, the new high speed standard for 802.11 WiFi networks? And why
not throw in a hard drive, so users can spool their content to the TV and watch
it without any streaming interruptions?

Introducing Apple TV
Apple TV fits the same needs as a Windows Media Center PC, but at a much lower
price point: under $300 rather than around $1000.

In addition to getting video, photos, and music from a PC library, it's also
integrated with iTunes, so users can download what they want to watch rather
than fishing from a stream of paid subscription content.

With cable plans commonly $50-100 per month, Apple TV offers an

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