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.'"

Comments

Not too bright, are they?

[tinpan]

If neither Mr. Gates nor Mr. Belfiore can figure out how Front Row could have TV and digital video recorder functions without adding buttons to Apple's remote, Microsoft is in sorry shape.

Re:Not too bright, are they?

[vought]

Mr. Gates is bright enough (chances are he scored higher on the SAT than you, and I mean chances are... He scored a 1590, and the 99th percentile is a mere 1450...) to know HOW to do it. What he wonders is WHY they've done it. There is a big difference there: between how and why.

I think you're about 90 degrees away from the real reason. Gates and Company never design something like the Front Row remote the first time they set out to design an "easy-=to-use" product.

At Apple, products are not designed to look stylish, although they often end up stylish because of how they are designed. The aesthetic at Apple is clean but complex, a bit like the plastic engine covers that became popular with the German automakers in the early 1990s. The covers had little functional value beyond cosmetics and making the vital bits (dipstick, coolant level, washer fill) stick out more clearly. To a degree, the plastic engine covers made the car user's job easier and cleaned up what had for many years been a confusing wasteland of hoses, belts and wires by eliminating those items from sight.

Microsoft applies conventional controls to existing problems; Apple more often applies aesthetic improvements that also benefit the user by eliminating the surface complexity of a product.

One example on the iMac's remote control is the forward/back/up/down button.

Functionally and aesthetically, there's no good reason to have four separate buttons when a centered round four cornered button will serve just as well. Apple places a fifth "action" button inside the round button because it's a short jump when navigating by thumb - the natural digit for this work.

By placing the round button in the center of the remote control, it falls to hand easily for both right and left-handed folks, and provides equal-reach thumb/finger control of each function under the single button.

This isn't a matter of how Steve Jobs or Bill Gates thinks, or what they scored on their SATs, but a true measure of how each company approaches problems.

After a thoughtful look at Media Center PCs and a few days of using a 20" iMac, it's clear the Microsoft designs controls for feature sets while Apple feature sets include pleasing product design.

Apple's ability to create functional designs is not something Microsoft, Creative, or anyone else is going to be able to "figure out" easily. It's not a math problem or a supply chain issue that can be reasoned out in the Silicon-Valley meeting room culture.

While seasoned designers can create stunning enclosures or cases, they have not shown the kind of human-centered thoughtfulness Apple has always been good at. And it's not just the physical product design or OS "theme". Everything at Apple, down to the styrofoam in the box is _designed from the get-go, rather than being grafted to a marketing requirements document.

Apple writes their own rules (and succeeds in a style-sensitive market) because they've got their own language.

the unspoken battle

[User 956]

I think the real battle here is between the xbox and the mac mini. The Windows Media center PC is nothing more than an expensive distraction. Microsoft's real wedge into the home media center space is the xbox. We saw this towards the end of the XBOX 1's lifetime, but it's all the more apparent with the XBOX 360's capabilities. Apple, of course, realizes this, and has positioned the mac mini and its iTunes offerings (and now Front Row) accordingly.

Re:the unspoken battle

[User 956]

Except the mac mini is specifically lacking everything it needs to completely own the home theatre space - quality A/V outputs.

The DVI output on the mac mini is a high quality output which is found on a wide variety of modern TVs. If your TV doesn't have that, Apple sells a DVI->Svideo adapter for the mac mini. Apple's competing on this front, they're just weirdly silent about it.

Baby steps...

[sexyrexy]

As fun, and seemingly simple, as it is to bash M$ for being a complete failure at taking over the living room, they are taking the tried-and-true approach to establishing dominance: baby steps. Put the Xbox in the living room, and after two or three iterations of that it's pretty commonplace to see Microsoft sitting under your tv. And so on.

The line from Pirates of Silicon Valley where Bill says (paraphrasing) "You have to make people need you" is perfectly descriptive of Microsoft's philosophy. You create a dependency over time... something that seems fringe or even silly in 1995 but in 2005 everyone can't live without it. It's a long process, but it works. You might not like it, either. But it makes money. It's a sound business practice.

And even if...

[Sosarian]

And even if it did have tv recording functions, my MythTV setup for instance uses about 9, maybe 10 buttons plus lets say 12 for the number pad. 22 total

Tivo Series 1 has 33 if you count the four way hat as four.

For me it's not so much how many buttons, but whether they layout is useful.

Screw Apple *and* Microsoft

[typical]

*My* living room media box is a Linux machine with a 104-key keyboard attached. And I'll bet it's a hell of a lot more capable than *either* of the above companies' offerings.

One button?

[HermanAB]

I thought Apple's remote control would have only ONE button.

the real answer

[webdev]

"Mr. Gates, Apple didn't release their remote until we had already gone to manufacturing."

Except...

[2nd Post!]

The XBox wasn't a baby step. It was jumping in feetfirst into the deep end, losing billions and costing billions.

The Mac mini is a baby step; cost effective, profitable, yet tentative. The iPod with video is a baby step; heck, even the original iPod was a baby step.

Apple has undertaken several baby steps to get themselves into the living room:
iPod
Mac mini
iMac with Front Row
Airport Express
iTunes Music Store
iTunes Video Store

Each one works on the experiences of the others and feeds off the successes of each other. Apple watches how Creative (mis)handles MP3 players and comes out with the iPod, watches how Sony and Creative and Real create jukeboxes and creates a correspondingly better one itself, watches how poor music stores are written and creates a nice one, etc.

Microsoft, in comparison hasn't taken any baby steps. It debuts the Media Center PC without any segue devices into the home, then years later introduces the XBox sans media center functionality, then introduce the XBox 360, again sans Media Center functionality.

If Microsoft were doing baby steps, why not release the XBox with build in Media Center functionality? It had the harddrive already, the DVD drive, the CPU! Why not use the XBox to refine the media center functionality, instead of a gaming PC? Why not introduce the XBox mini, who's sole purpose is to lower the price point for the XBox to $99, act as a DVR, and a digital hub? Of course they can't do it because Intel sees no reason to, but that is why you parter with AMD! Create a purpose built CPU, integrate the GPU and other hardware, for a system on a chip so that they can release an entire console with only three components and four devices!

Instead they end of life the XBox the same day the XBox 360 is released; unlike how Sony has successfully kept the PSOne and PS2 alive these past years, and likely will continue to support PS2 for years after the PS3 is out.

Mac Mini + Front Row

[norminator]

The mini doesn't come with Front Row, only iMac's do.

Until next week that's true, but one of the main predictions for MacWorld is a Mac Mini with a TV Tuner and Front Row software.

It's amazing to me how the iPod came into its market, took over and completely dominates. Electronics manufacturers are building entire product lines from low-end to very high-end accessories, specifically to capitalize on the iPod's success. Most major high-end distributed audio systems now support directly connecting to the iPod to allow it as a source for whole-house audio.

The Mac Mini has been used as a cheap but solid music server by many custom electronics installers. Apple is not only winning with general consumers, but for very high-end applcations (read: rich people's houses and very nice commercial installations).

It's funny to me that Microsoft has been pitching the Media Center for a few years now, and it's starting to come around for expensive custom installs now, too, but I think it's too much. Too much complexity trying to give people stuff they didn't know they want, and not allowing the real control people need.

At work I see a lot of hype about Windows Media Center, and although the menu animations look smooth and almost fancy, and it would be nice to have full Tivo-like capabilities from my PC, I think it's too bulky, trying to be the great all-purpose PC, and give you Tivo functionality, too. I think Microsoft misunderstands a lot of the higher-end market they're trying to get into, because of their arrogance and assumptions that they can just enter any market they want. At the same time, Win MCE isn't really for alot of middle class people either, because those people mostly just want to check their e-mail and browse the internet.

I won't be surprised at all to see Apple provide an inexpensive Mac Mini-based solution that consumers from low-middle class to the very rich will be excited to own and use. I think Microsoft, even though they've been in the game for a relatively long time already, should be getting ready to have their lunch handed to them. I've never owned a Mac or an iPod, but I think I might be holding my own 6-button remote soon.

Buttons?

[Rand310]

Why must there only be buttons on a remote? What about a scroll wheel like on the iPod? The 'superluous' padlock on the iPod is an easy way to squeeze numeric buttons into one scroll wheel...

Buttons

[carlislematthew]

[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.)

Typical Microsoft. I wonder when they'll realize that Windows XP is not appliance-ready? AFAIK, Media Center is just XP Pro with an extra app (the main Media Center app) installed. I've personally worked with XP Embedded (a componentized version of XP Professional) and it's a total BITCH. You have to hack it to make it "embedded" by setting registry settings, and installing things that click "OK" to modal dialogue boxes and so on. If I can't get XP Embedded working like an embedded appliance, what makes MS think that they can make a standard XP Pro installation work for the average consumer?

Media Center is great for people like me, and also people on Slashdot that don't foam at the mouth every time MS is mentioned, mumbling "Linux! Linux!!". It's also pretty awesome as a bedroom computerTV or for a dorm, but I just can't see it making significant inroads into the living room. Apple may change things somewhat by simplfying things, and so perhaps will the Xbox360, which is where I'm putting my money (not literally of couse).

war of the buttons

[lucm]

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?

Why only 6 buttons? Here's why.

[goldsounds]

When Microsoft created the MCE remote, they simply copied the style of VCR one-function-per-button remotes. This is stupid and short-sighted - the reason VCR remotes evolved that way is because for many years VCR's couldn't overlay fancy animated menus on the screen that give the user a sense of context.

When Apple designed Front Row, they realised that because they have visual cues all over the screen, each of the six buttons can have several functions depending on the context. They just need enough buttons to navigate a menu system, and everything else is done on the screen.

Leave it to Microsoft to cram in the technology. Leave it to Apple to see the possibilities afforded by that technology.

Dan

What a Putz.

[jcr]

Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.

With a properly-designed UI on the freaking screen, you don't need 39 buttons on the remote.

-jcr

Re:Front Row does NOT have TV/DV record ... yet

[Pollardito]

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"

Re:Why 6 bottons?

[dgatwood]

I hope you're kidding. If you've ever used a TiVo or DirecTV or digital cable, I doubt you ever use those number buttons anymore. Program guides are a much better way of selecting shows than channel surfing because you can see a half dozen channels at once, along with program descriptions. And when you have 20 channels, remembering channel numbers was easy; when you have 700 channels... not so much.

If there is some benefit to having a numeric keypad on such systems, I have yet to see it. Having an alphanumeric keyboard to make TV show searches faster, however, would be useful for some people. It should not be required, though, since hunting and pecking on a QWERTY keyboard won't actually be faster than picking letters from a grid (TiVo-style) for some customers.

While I do agree that sometimes simplifying interfaces can go too far by removing useful functionality, the reverse is far more often the case---naive interface designers throwing in the kitchen sink when all you needed was a Wet-Nap. The trick is striking the right balance, and while I may not always agree with the point where Apple strikes that balance, they're usually not far off the mark, IMHO.