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The Engineer Behind Microsoft's TV Strategy
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "A high-energy engineer named Joe Belfiore, age 37, has led Microsoft's Media Center team for four years. The effort has gained momentum in the past year, the Wall Street Journal reports, bolstering Microsoft's defense against a challenge from Apple's Front Row for control of home-entertainment software. 'The Apple threat seems menacing, in part because of recent history: Its iPod was a late entry in an established field of digital music players but soon stole the lion's share of the market,' the WSJ writes. At Microsoft, Front Row is already causing ripples: [Bill] Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.) At stake is more than just another piece of software for home computers. Both companies, and others, are trying to build the foundational technology for all home digital entertainment.'"
Yeah, them dudes never realized that Apple's one-button mousey was superior, and now they are repeating the mistake yet again. Of course, the Lunix community will begin a new era of six button jokes as of this year.
I thought Apple's remote control would have only ONE button.
Oh well, what the hell...
"Mr. Gates, Apple didn't release their remote until we had already gone to manufacturing."
Long time, no see, Yourdon! What are you up to these days?
Microsoft can't win this war of the buttons.
Mac could go with only two buttons ("play" and "order a new battery from apple"), but Microsoft is stuck with at least four ("play", "reboot", "reinstall" and "upgrade").
Only Amazon.com could possibly come with a single button operation... but wait, don't they already have a patent on this?
lucm, indeed.
i heard that he's going to announce the Front Row Shuffle which has three buttons: "Next Random Channel", "Next Random Volume" and "Fast Forward Some Distance"
bought one engineer this time?