One word: WebTV. They signed up every cable company in the country. Where did it go? Nowhere.
Windows Media Center is following it closely.
I'm usually on your side, but one more word. Windows 1.0. Give a multi-billion dollar company enough time and influence, and I am afraid they can shove anything down our throats.
I'm usually on your side, but one more word. Windows 1.0. Give a multi-billion dollar company enough time and influence, and I am afraid they can shove anything down our throats.
I still think that Windows was their fluke, and then only because IBM was a moron.
Unfortunately, it was *the* break they needed.
The list of horrendous crash and burn projects at MS is amazingly long. Bob, anyone?
I agree that their deep pockets mean that they have a huge club to use in the market. However, when you're talking about open standards, they don't get to use that club. MPEG-4, etc, etc level the playing field a bit.
I'm with you Kick, and I am really excited about Apple's future (and was smart enough to buy stock on that feeling). I guess I'm just not ready to write off MS and the big cable monopolies teaming up to make life realllly difficult for everyone else. I think they will fail, but nothing surprises me anymore...
let's just say that i watched slightly less-than-dvd-quality episodes of Alias season 4 (episode 1 and 2) which i can't get on satellite tv where i am (far from the USA, quite far from Australia)...
video on demand is so so so close, i can almost smell the iTunes VideoCinema Store
my dad is so keen on getting his hands on like 24 Season 3 (i haven't seen that either) and Alias Season 4 and Battlestar Galactica new Season....
PLUS i have a big hankering to watch that anime series Cowboy Bebop again, it was f8cking so so so brilliant with a tight story arc over just 20+ episodes....
waiting for stuff to be released on DVDs, and then having to buy the whole set at about us$70 or whatever is just so last century... and DVD rental, well, sometimes i like the option of hanging on to some stuff a bit longer, rather than having to watch it straight away so i can get my next DVDs... hmm
we are close, and while Stevie J reputedly "hates TV" dvd/film content cannot be ignored.... so close, yet so far... ...but a lot can and change in a few years
I'm with you Kick, and I am really excited about Apple's future (and was smart enough to buy stock on that feeling). I guess I'm just not ready to right off MS and the big cable monopolies teaming up to make life realllly difficult for everyone else. I think they will fail, but nothing surprises me anymore...
Agreed. I don't think it's a shoe-in, but I *do* think that the market is taking a nice big step towards open standards for content delivery. That alone will make WMV/VC-1/etc Just Another Player. ie, unless MS does a 180 and adopts standards that are already open, defined, and ubiquitous, they're going to be screwed out of a big market. 'Embrace and extinguish' doesn't work if the standard deploys to units you don't control. Ie, TVs, DVRs, etc. Too many companies have been burned by MS to want to stick a toe in that water right now. MS doesn't get the foothold at the viewer end to make a case for mucking with the content production at the back. Voila, they become just one more company among many trying to provide a solution.
From that point on it'll still be a hell of a fight, but at least it'll be a fair one, IMO.
Comments
Originally posted by Kickaha
One word: WebTV. They signed up every cable company in the country. Where did it go? Nowhere.
Windows Media Center is following it closely.
I'm usually on your side, but one more word. Windows 1.0. Give a multi-billion dollar company enough time and influence, and I am afraid they can shove anything down our throats.
Originally posted by blue2kdave
I'm usually on your side, but one more word. Windows 1.0. Give a multi-billion dollar company enough time and influence, and I am afraid they can shove anything down our throats.
I still think that Windows was their fluke, and then only because IBM was a moron.
Unfortunately, it was *the* break they needed.
The list of horrendous crash and burn projects at MS is amazingly long. Bob, anyone?
I agree that their deep pockets mean that they have a huge club to use in the market. However, when you're talking about open standards, they don't get to use that club. MPEG-4, etc, etc level the playing field a bit.
video on demand is so so so close, i can almost smell the iTunes VideoCinema Store
my dad is so keen on getting his hands on like 24 Season 3 (i haven't seen that either) and Alias Season 4 and Battlestar Galactica new Season....
PLUS i have a big hankering to watch that anime series Cowboy Bebop again, it was f8cking so so so brilliant with a tight story arc over just 20+ episodes....
waiting for stuff to be released on DVDs, and then having to buy the whole set at about us$70 or whatever is just so last century... and DVD rental, well, sometimes i like the option of hanging on to some stuff a bit longer, rather than having to watch it straight away so i can get my next DVDs... hmm
we are close, and while Stevie J reputedly "hates TV" dvd/film content cannot be ignored.... so close, yet so far...
Originally posted by blue2kdave
I'm with you Kick, and I am really excited about Apple's future (and was smart enough to buy stock on that feeling). I guess I'm just not ready to right off MS and the big cable monopolies teaming up to make life realllly difficult for everyone else. I think they will fail, but nothing surprises me anymore...
Agreed. I don't think it's a shoe-in, but I *do* think that the market is taking a nice big step towards open standards for content delivery. That alone will make WMV/VC-1/etc Just Another Player. ie, unless MS does a 180 and adopts standards that are already open, defined, and ubiquitous, they're going to be screwed out of a big market. 'Embrace and extinguish' doesn't work if the standard deploys to units you don't control. Ie, TVs, DVRs, etc. Too many companies have been burned by MS to want to stick a toe in that water right now. MS doesn't get the foothold at the viewer end to make a case for mucking with the content production at the back. Voila, they become just one more company among many trying to provide a solution.
From that point on it'll still be a hell of a fight, but at least it'll be a fair one, IMO.