I recorded this on Sunday night and got around to narrating this evening. Enjoy...
Alexander Grundner: "In respect to iTV, Media Extenders for Windows Media Center and third party digital media adapters have been doing this duty for over two years now. What's so revolutionary (at least these days) about a device that streams videos from your PC to your TV wirelessly?"
Michael Gartenberg: "They key to the announcement is understanding that there's a seamless end to end experience for consumers for consuming digital content both within the home and outside the home."
Om Malik: "In the post-PC, device world, content is what sells the hardware, at least for hardware. More music, more movies, more television means iPod becomes da platform."
Paul Thurrott: "Overall, the iTV looks solid but it's lacking one key feature: DVR. It's literally a dull terminal, albeit one with a gorgeous UI. That doesn't mean that Apple can't add DVR capabilities to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) of course. And you know what? I hope they do. Anyway, so far, so good. It's not the uber-box some people expected, but I'll be first in line to get one."
Robert Scoble: [Addressing Steve Jobs] "Your UI looks an awful lot like Windows Media Center. Almost a total copy. So, who is copying whom? What’s next, a Tablet PC copy?"
Mike Torres: "You know though, Apple is truly at the top of its game these days. Even more so than a year ago - or 4+ years ago when I bought my first-gen 10GB iPod. As much as I critique their lock-in model, they never cease to wow me with how much they're able to do, and the innovation and quality bar they set for others. I applaud them."
Omar Shahine: "If Apple would just support WMA and get HBO to offer their shows for download I'd be set, I'd never consider any other device or audio software for my desktop/laptop (still need Windows Media Center though). Zune better ship soon so that we can get started on v2 and of course v3. Apple has a massive head start and I'm not sure anyone will ever catch up (or that it matters)."
Steve Makofsky: "Looks like it's time to whip out the credit card."
Thomas Hawk: "And then we have iTV. So let's see. I'm going to pay $300 for a little dongle that will allow me the privlige of paying Apple $10-$15 to buy movies from them at less than DVD quality to watch on my new HDTV Plasma? I can just stick with Netflix, pay a heck of a lot less and not have to buy the $300 little dongle thing."
Ed Bott: So, will someone please tell me why I want to replace my Xbox 360 with an Apple-branded device that only plays tunes from one music store, allows me to pay $15 for a movie encoded at 640 by 480 that looks like crap on my widescreen HDTV, and is unable to record or stream TV programming?
My take: Things are becoming mildy interesting at this point. Apple built out the personal content side first and has a very strong position there (iTunes Store + iPod). We built out the home content side first and have a very strong position there (Windows Media Center + XBox 360 Media Center Extender). Apple is making a foray into the home content side (iTV). We are making our foray into the personal content side (Zune). Holiday '08 is shaping up to be very interesting.
So, who is the dark horse none of us are seeing at the moment...?
Chris and I have been having an offline, private email chat today -- all of it good discussion -- I'll leave it up to him to share what he wishes from that exchange of thoughts. Truly, thanks for engaging, Chris, both publicly and privately -- and pushing us on these issues. Chris has also been posting comments both here and here. He still can't bring himself to accept the challenge (yet). Rather, he wants to claim the following...
"We're comparing apples and oranges, discussing different qualities of each, and you're wanting me to put an orange up against your apple."
Nice subtle inflection point, by the way, comparing your Linux orange with my Windows apple. (I caught the 'wink', so perhaps not too subtle.) If I buy into this statement I would be de facto conceding Mac OS X is better than Windows Vista (or even Windows XP) -- which it isn't (in my opinion). But I digress.
Right before that statement Chris compares and contrasts the features quite boldly:
"When I rave about XGL, it's because of what it's doing - and how it does what it does. Nothing even comes close to that in Windows Vista - in pure features or implementation. If there's a challenge (in my mind), it's already been settled. Vista's new Win+Tab feature vs. the XGL shortcuts in a Linux DE."
In my way of thinking, you can't have it both ways. Either we can compare these things, or we can't. If we can't, then don't.
So, while he is deciding on whether to accept the challenge: I installed SUSE 10.1 tonight. I have *only* installed (accepting all defaults except for prompts such as user name and password stuff) and booted to the desktop -- then turned off the machine. I learned some things (you can't help but learn if you choose to install) which I will share at a later date.
Chris, you better accept (or decline) fast -- while I'm still relatively ignorant.
P.S. Hurry -- I'm downloading the Mandriva ISO now...!
Update: Chris continues the talk, but no walk yet. He added a response elsewhere: http://channels.lockergnome.com/windows/archives/20060911_windows_vista_thoughts.phtml but curiously still has not accepted the challenge.
In The Windows Vista Challenge Chris responds to my challenge, but noticeably does not (yet) accept the challenge. He asks everyone to go read John Naughton. The quote he pulls from John includes the following:
"And yet while Microsoft engineers were trudging through their death march, the open source community shipped a series of major upgrades to the Linux operating system. How can hackers, scattered across the globe, working for no pay, linked only by the net and shared values, apparently outperform the smartest software company on the planet?"
And then Chris goes on to make a few more points in support of this assetion by John and summarizes with this:
"There is no perfect operating system, and I’m certainly not suggesting that Linux and/or OS X are totally teh shiz. What I am saying, however, is that as far as cohesive, compelling user experiences go - I believe that Vista’s Aero fails (on the whole)."
But he seems to indicate with Linux + XGL you do get 'the shiz'...
'You can operate an XGL desktop perfectly without having to upgrade your video card first. To add insult to injury, XGL sports infinitely better (and reasonably more) eye candy than Aero does. Windows Vista is hardware hungry, no doubt - and I’m challenging Microsoft’s assertion that Aero is a “breakthrough user experience.”'
'XGL, on the other hand, is breakthrough...'
So, if Linux really is outperforming Windows, and XGL really is that breakthrough, this challenge should be an absolute walk in the park for Chris. Come on, Chris -- put your money (figuratively speaking) where your mouth is and accept the challenge. It totally works for me if you want to use Mandriva Linux 2007 RC1 instead of SUSE 10.1.
[ Changed title -- first one was kinda / sorta over the top all by itself -- let my emotions peek through  ]
Normally, I find Chris Pirillo's blog an enjoyable read, but not lately. It's tough hearing you and teammates esentially being called a bunch of idiots every time you read his posts as of late. OK, he did have one semi-positive post here, but still couldn't find it in his heart to write something totally positive -- note the twist of the knife in the last post. He's got a serious bug up the ole wazoo in regards to Windows Vista, and the cream the doctor prescribed doesn't seem to be easing his discomfort.
His pointing to XGL running on Linux was seriously laughable, though. I understand Chris wants to make a point about the UI / user experience in Windows Vista, but it seems to me you have to look at the entire user experience, starting with installation. I'm downloading the distro identified by Wikipedia which ships XGL as a "a non-default in one major Linux distribution, SUSE 10.1". (I'm not clear whether the DVD ISO contains XGL -- we will have to see. I and might have to go with the Internet install which 'contains all packaged software for SUSE Linux'.)
Let's have a head to head competition on identical hardware, Chris. Windows Vista RC1 (Beta Software) vs. SUSE Linux 10.1 (Released Software).
You and Ponzi are even invited over to the house (Nancy can cook y'all some good North Carolina i.e., southern cooking the likes of which you can't find much of, if any, here in Seattle.) I'll even let you run the Linux install, just so nobody can claim I stacked the deck against you.
Up to the challenge...?
Zack over on the Snapstream blog: Project Hoover: Suck up every TV show in the new fall season, be your own TV critic
I kind of wish we had a way to build Godzilla -- an 11 tuner Media Center PC (but understand why we don't). I'm glad Beyond TV is around to be able to go where we don't (after all, it runs on Windows too).
Check out his synopses on the coming fall TV lineup at the end of the post -- it might help you make good choices on what to record with your single, dual or quad tuner Media Center setup.
I saw the initial Engadget reports this morning from the WWDC. A couple of huge banners at the venue tout...
Mac OS X Leopard
Hasta la vista, Vista.
Mac OS X Leopard
Redmond has a cat, too. A copycat.
Free advertising, courtesy of Apple, at their developer conference. Something I doubt you would ever see at PDC. Thanks!
I had the good fortune of hearing Chris Anderson in person talk about The Long Tail yesterday. I bought the book at the event (paid at least double what it costs at Amazon, but so far, after 82 pages I haven't regretted the purchase) just so I could get Chris to autograph it for me. His presentation was really good, and he had great answers to the questions posed by the audience -- and Microsofties make for a tough crowd -- I think he got through slide 2 when someone interrupted with a question. Let the guy speak people!
Anywho...
Chris mentions a lot of companies in his book, and finally got around to Microsoft with XBox Live Arcade which he considers our leveraging of The Long Tail. I just downloaded the Frogger demo and am probably going to get it for my wife, who enjoyed the game back in the day -- so his point is valid.
Let me caveat this next statement -- I haven't yet read the whole book, so perhaps Chris gets around to this point.
He brings up a bunch of relatively new companies or software who have embraced The Long Tail: Amazon, Google, Netflix, eBay. I think he misses the fact Microsoft embraced The Long Tail long ago (and continues to do so today). In some cases, we leveraged The Long Tail long before many of these companies existed.
I don't have any sales numbers here, and I'm only guessing here on the relative sales of each. Consider the following, with the 'hit' on the top and the 'niche' on the bottom.
Hit --> Streets & Trips 2006
AutoRoute 2006
Streets & Trips 2006 with GPS Locator
Pocket Streets 2005
MapPoint 2006 Standard Edition
Niche --> MapPoint 2006 with GPS Locator
Some may argue these are effectively the same product with minor differences. While they may share a bulk of similar data (the maps) the features and platforms diverge quite a bit, and it's non-trivial to deliver some of the features unique to only one of the products. I would say it's Microsoft embracing the niche and bringing a great product to a very small audience.
Another case in point is the Windows Media Center Presentation Layer platform. It's designed from the ground up to democratize (a favorite word of Chris' in the book) the creation of remote controlled interfaces worldwide. In fact, much of its power comes in the fact it can remote user interfaces with full fidelity to another device in the home, namely the XBox 360. Chris has first hand experience with the inherent problems associated with being a niche: XBox 360 + Windows Media Center PC + resaonably fault tolerant home network, preferably wired (and almost has to be wired if you want to push high definition content around). I'm not sure how much more niche you can get than that. Yet I believe we are highly successful both as a product and a platform for the audience we target. In fact, I've been pretty excited about the response over at http://discuss.mediacentersandbox.com/forums/default.aspx for a 1.0 platform which won't be commercially available for a while yet and whose fans must jump through large hurdles just to get the bits to run. Not to mention they can't use it to deliver any typical desktop applications (apps they create *only* run within Windows Media Center).
And I don't think the Streets + Trips and Windows Media Center teams are unique here at Microsoft. With the exception of Office and Windows I believe *most* of our broad spectrum of products would be considered part of the tail, not the head. A closer look might reveal we revel in the niche at many, many levels. To his credit, Chris does call out you can observe The Long Tail distribution in just about any market or company or set of data.
Instead of Microsoft trailing these relative newcomers in embracing The Long Tail, perhaps it's more along the lines of these newcomers finally discovering and adopting what Microsoft has used for many, many years. I think it's relatively easy to elevate these (again, relatively) new companies as being on the 'cutting edge' of embracing the niche because of their rapid growth and discounting companies such as Microsoft simply because they have large hits (and perhaps forgetting they provide a ton of value for the niche).
When asked at his talk how he felt Microsoft perhaps embraced The Long Tail, Chris mentioned our platform as enabling niche developers along with XBox Live Arcade. He is right, but it would be interesting to see additional detail and research into the broad Microsoft product offerings as well.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the book -- and embracing my nicheness.
A year ago I became so busy with 'other stuff' here at work I stopped my regular practice of blocking off time on Friday afternoons to do nothing but generate sample code, solve problems with our SDK docs, ponder deeper technical issues which can't be tackled with the typical interruptions of a busy team or respond to community requests or issues.
Coding Friday is back from 1:00 - 6:00 PM PST.
It started last week. And I'm going to do something unprecedented (well, at least for me). Taking a page out of Robert Scoble's book, here is my contact information...
email: charlieo@microsoft.com
phone: (425) 707-7818
im: charlie_owen@hotmail.com
skype: retrosight
Give me a ring during Coding Friday hours -- let's chat about Windows Media Center development.
Well, Matt finally spills the beans in the loss of two Windows Media Center features in Windows Vista: Messenger and Caller ID.
Frankly, I never thought we did each of those features particularly well. Apologies to Matt and the other PMs which made 'em happen originally. I don't really think it was our fault per se they didn't live up to expectations. They were built on top of APIs which were limited (Windows Messenger) or rarely used (modem anyone?).
But our loss is certainly your gain.
Now that caller ID is gone it's a perfect opportunity to do a new thing -- XBox Live gamer online notifications (I just got mine tonight, btw: 'retrosight'. Skype contact notifications. Blog post notifications. I really think we never explored where we could actually take something like Caller ID because, well, we were stuck in the 90s with needing to connect a telephone cable.
And now that our Messenger implementation is gone it's an opportunity for someone to do a *real* messenger client for Windows Media Center. I'm thinking full screen interface overlaying Live TV capabilities here. Also, after using the iMate KJam for a while I'm thoroughly convinced a thumb keyboard remote control should be built which is compatible with Windows Media Center. I believe its size would make a much more attractive option to a full size keyboard (such as the Windows Media Center keyboard or the new Bluetooth keyboard we announced a few weeks (months?) ago.
So, what company will be first to take advantage and deliver experiences which put our originals to shame (using the new Windows media Center Presentation Layer Application model, of course).
Have you checked out http://discuss.mediacentersandbox.com yet? If not, head on over. Mark, Aaron and myself have been answering questions over there for some time and now Scott (Dev) and Krishna (Dev) are participating. Aaron, we've got to find another PM or two -- the devs are beginning to outnumber us!
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