"Microsoft today announced the availability of Mediaroom, the latest update to its award-winning IPTV software platform, featuring several new multimedia capabilities, including in-home personal music and photo sharing, dynamic MultiView (multiple picture-in-picture) capabilities, Multimedia Application Environment for development of interactive .."
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I'm not sure if all readers of this will realize the bigger picture here. Microsoft chose to call this "Mediaroom" because that's truly what they want to provide, all types of digital media to any room in the house. To me, this is one of the last pieces to a puzzle that I've been seeing form for quite some time. Some people who dislike and/or fear Microsoft for it's approach will certainly view this as an "another attempt to own your living room", and their kind of right. This software by itself will not require you to give any money to Microsoft. What it does is make it very simple for a person, who wants to, to create a simplified solution for their home entertainment system, but it's all Microsoft.
I for one am already considering this solution because it will allow me to do something I've dreamed of since I baught my XBox 360....THROW AWAY MY CABLE BOX...plain and simple, I hate it. Poor interface coupled with poor hardware. Plus, it's just one more device, one more remote and one more layer of complication. This product, once I choose an IPTV provider, will allow me to use my Xbox and any other networked PC as the sole hardware for a unified, simplified solution that does everything I want to do with my TV.
Microsoft wants me to do this because they think I'll be more likely to purchase XBox Live video content; movies & TV shows. But I don't want to. Not unless they want to offer much more selection and a much more reasonable pricing, something at least as cheap as and with the selection of the movie store. I can make a trip to a RedBox quicker than I can download a full length movie, so why bother?
So, in a sense, they are making pretty good leaps and bounds to "owning" a lot of living rooms, but not in the sense of taking anythign away from the owner. Instead, more that people who share my idea of how integrated a home network and a entertainment system should be, will be far less likely to be buying an AppleTV, or any other so called solution any time soon.
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