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Microsoft Says Goodbye To WebTV/MSN TV
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has just notified both subscribers of MSN TV that the service would be ending at the end of September (FAQ for subscribers here). The service, which delivered Internet access to a TV screen via a set top box, was the evolution of WebTV Networks launched by Steve Perlman and others during the initial Web boom in the mid '90s. Microsoft bought the company for $503 million in 1997, when Bill Gates was still CEO."
I owned MSN TV and it was one of the best services of all time. So long, you will be missed...
The original idea of WebTV was that it would be a simple web browsing appliance for people who didn't need all the power of a full-fledged computer, and didn't want to learn all the intricacies of Windows. The thing is, we now have other devices that do this even better: tablets and smartphones. And the non-technical crowd has transitioned to these devices en masse. We hear a lot about the so-called "post-PC era", but it isn't because experienced users have stopped using standard PCs. (They haven't, and won't – tablets and smartphones are much too limited to take the place of a real workstation.) Rather, it's because people who never used all the power of a PC in the first place decided to switch to devices that were easier to use, and didn't require antivirus software or weekly security patching. An iPad makes a lousy workstation, but for non-technical users, it's a better web-browsing/email/Facebook device than a Windows PC. And WebTV with its ancient hardware and firmware couldn't keep up.