Microsoft is too big, too determined and has too much technology to be dismissed in over-the-top video and home entertainment markets, two areas it’s been developing products in for over a decade. The software giant demonstrated its latest version of the digital media home of the future last week at a meeting with financial analysts.
The gear consisted of:
– Wi-Fi home network.
– Onkyo stereo receiver/surround sound system.
– Xbox 360.
– A Western Digital box, probably a network storage device that connects to PCs over the home network.
– Windows Phone 7.
– Unnamed touch-screen slates with Windows 7.
– Media Center PC connected to an HD TV.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine was used to find content.
Microsoft says that PC stands for “personal cloud” because it makes content available to the various Windows devices that are connected. The Personal Cloud isn’t a specific destination like a locker-type service but more a systematic synching of content across devices. Users don’t go to a Web site. To get shared content from all of their CE gear, they go to the device.
Microsoft said the personal cloud will connect all the things that are important to a person and make them available and ready for use wherever they are, whenever they need them. It said the personal cloud will connect a person to their entertainment choices, introduce new content and connect them to the people that “matter the most” to them.
It’ll connect to devices in the home or in the pocket or purse. Every device that’s connected to a person’s personal cloud can access the content that’s stored there. One of those devices can be a Windows Phone 7-based device.
Brad Brooks from the Windows marketing team said Microsoft will take the Windows 7 PC experience and “make it even more compelling for consumers and deliver it on a scale that Microsoft can deliver it on.” Starting this fall, he said, the personal cloud will be delivered through a Windows Live update to every existing Windows 7 PC and every Windows Phone 7 device.
By Q3 this year, he said, “A vast majority of all PCs that ship to consumers will have this pre-installed so people will have this personal cloud experience as part of their Windows 7 experience right out of the box, and of course that will come with every Windows Phone 7 as well.”
Because the devices are Windows 7 devices, Microsoft did not need to demonstrate access to online services like Netflix and YouTube.
What Microsoft was demonstrating, in effect, is the “Microsoft TV” that will compete with the Android-based Google TV and current and future versions of Apple TV. Much of the technology it demonstrated is already available. What’s new is the concept of the “personal cloud” and the ability for smartphones with Windows 7 to get full access, making them more powerful portable media players.
What both Apple and Microsoft are missing is having their TV technology built into TV sets and Blu-ray players. HP had a TV set with Microsoft built-in some years back but it seems to have disappeared. Apple may have avoided that on purpose. Microsoft may have missed out to the likes of Yahoo! Widgets and the TV set makers’ own technology.
Google intends to avoid that and have its technology built in. So far, however, only Sony has committed to making TV sets with Google TV built in. Slovenia-based Antik said last week it’ll build Google TV into its future STBs, which it sells to pay-TV services. If Google TV looks like it will become a viable product, other makers of TVs and STBs are sure to follow.
What Microsoft did not provide in detail are the specifications of the tablets it demonstrated. Microsoft is obviously sensitive to two major shortcomings of tablets that use Windows 7: optimized touch-screen because Windows 7 was designed for a mouse and keyboard; and battery usage because Windows 7 tablets must use-power hungry Atom processors.
Microsoft indicated that Windows 7 tablets lacked competitive touch-screen technology when Brooks said, “so, here I’ve got another slate form factor and again running Windows 7 and I’m going to pop open a prototype application we’ve been working with at Microsoft and using to help train our ecosystem [companies that make slates and apps for slates] about how to create touch-first applications on Windows 7.
It also acknowledged Windows 7 tablet’s limitation in battery usage by saying Intel’s coming Oak Trail processor will provide more power. Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said, “Oak Trail is designed to be lower power. Lower power is good in a lot of ways. It leads to longer battery life, no fan, lower kind of noise levels, a lot less weight — a lot of things that people like.” You bet! They love the 10 hours or so between battery charges on their iPads.
At the meeting, Microsoft also did not talk about the wide-ranging license with ARM that it announced last week. Some analysts speculate that the license may lead to Microsoft doing a version of Windows 7 that’ll run on tablets that have current or future ARM-designed processors. And that may not be a good thing for Intel.
So far, staunch Microsoft partisans Dell, Samsung, HP and LG have said they’ll launch tablets that run an OS other than Windows 7. The four have not said they won’t launch Windows 7 tablets and, in fact, Microsoft lists all four as companies that’ll make tablets with Windows 7.