Microsoft Ready To "Take On'' Google and Apple TV

Antisyzygy writes "Microsoft is getting ready to offer an internet television solution of its own, and will demo a TV box this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas." The rumor is under $200 putting it more on price point with GoogleTV at the moment.

Comments

Re:Sure

[hairyfeet]

And as anyone who has used WMC on windows 7 will tell you they know how to make a damned good 10 foot UI now. if they make it as butt simple and user friendly as WMC? Yeah they could grab some decent share. People see that easy peasy WMC interface and it really isn't a hard sell, one of my biggest sellers is USB TV Tuners thanks to having a box in the corner running WMC broadcasting the cable in the shop. when folks say "How did you do that?" and "Is that a PC running the TV?" I just hand them the remote and let them play awhile, easy sell. Then you point out that Win 7 and the X360 play REALLY nice together? No problem getting them to open their wallets.

So if they keep the UI of Windows 7 WMC and the easy X360 connect? Yeah it could be a hit. And don't forget the WMV Janus DRM has yet to be reasonably hacked which will make content owners a lot less spooked about dealing with MSFT. Finally MSFT looks to be finally getting that the key to the home is "easy peasy" without the layers of submenus and options MSFT has been known for in the past. By getting WMC, WMP and the x360 all playing nice with each other the initial setup of the new MSFT stuff has pretty much been "plug in and go" which really appeals to the average Joe.

Of course it will all depend on whether MSFT can keep from shooting themselves in the foot which is always a big risk with them. Just look at how they were changing code damned near until Gold on the Vista subsystems which broke many drivers and pissed off the OEMs. So I'd say whether it has a shot will largely depend on whether MSFT can resist the urge to do something mind numbingly stupid, which is anyone's guess at this point.