All of the recent buzz around Google TV has overshadowed a major Microsoft announcement regarding Windows 7 Embedded. And that’s a shame for several reasons. First, Google TV, while useful, is little more than a glorified search. Yes, it’s useful to be able to search for a show, not only through TV channels and on-demand, but also throughout the web. Second, Windows 7 Media Center is much more powerful and flexible than any DVR on the market, including TiVo.
Yes, Microsoft went down this road before, but they were a different company back then. They were under investigation by the Justice Department for monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior. And, by all accounts, when Bill Gates approached the cable companies about putting Media Center on their DVR’s he scared them off by trying to strong-arm them. This was in the days of XP also, and that took a lot of processor power and would have made the DVR’s cost-prohibitive.
But, now we have Windows 7, which is light enough to run on today’s low end netbooks. The new embedded is also completely componetized, meaning manufacturers can use only the parts of it they want. It has Netflix built in, as well as internet TV, pictures, music and a wealth of plug-ins available, including Hulu. It supports multiple tuners – not just the 2 that cable and satellite providers seem to think is acceptable. And those tuners work every bit as well at recoding your TV shows as any DVR on the market.
Yes, you can plug a computer into your home theater, as I do, but let’s face it – this is not something the average user is going to be able to handle. It may not be especially difficult, but it’s not easy enough for my mom and dad either. There’s tuners to install and setups to do.
So now; with Roku coming on strong (although it’s not a DVR), TiVo’s latest release receiving rather bad reviews, Google TV not yet out, rumors of a new Apple TV, and cable DVR’s being severely underpowered; is the time for Microsoft to build, or hire a third party to build, a DVR. They need to approach those cable and satellite companies again and have less of an attitude this time around. Most of all they need to advertise the heck out of it. They need to show their interface everywhere and let people see just how much their current DVR doesn’t do.
They waited too long to release the Zune and they lost out. If they want to win the battle for our living rooms, and they’ve made overtures about this for years, they need to act quickly and decisively.
