Microsoft Whistling The Same Old Tune

Cable World, Sept 11, 2000 by Jim Barthold

Even as Microsoft very publicly stumbles along the path of incorporating its Windows CE operating system into cable set-tops, it's following a separate track developing Whistler, the 2001 version of Windows that is very heavily television-oriented.

"Microsoft TV includes a lot of technology that initially came out of the WebTV service," says Ed Graczyk, director-marketing communications for the Microsoft TV Platform group. "Microsoft TV, in turn, has cool technologies that make sense to incorporate into the Whistler product. Someone with a PC device running this new version of Windows can integrate TV broadcast functionality into their standard PC."

Microsoft has struggled with integrating its software into the set-top platform, so it's reasonable to assume it would prefer to go back to working with the PC.

Reasonable, but incorrect, Graczyk says.

"This is in no way a move away from Microsoft TV or Windows CE as the core of our set-top software offering," he says. "It's in no way an indication that Microsoft thinks PCs are going to be the mainstream set-top device of the future. Some people have said this means we're going to put Whistler on set-tops. That's not what we're talking about."

According to Graczyk, Whistler will drive a future "entertainment appliance" that is the hub for home entertainment devices, such as TVs, DVDs, CDs and DVRs, "and will connect to the PC in your office that you use for normal PC kinds of things and can share that broadband connection out to the Web."

The entertainment device, he says, could be configured as a home networking hub because "it will connect to the other set-tops in your home," where it will control all the home entertainment functions.

"This doesn't replace the TV at all," he says. "The mainstream receiver platform for TVs is, without a doubt, the set-top box. If everything goes as we hope, the majority of those set-top boxes will be running Microsoft TV instead of some competing piece of software."

Things haven't been going as hoped. Microsoft has been missing deadlines with customers, such as AT&T Broadband, which pushed back its interactive TV deployments to some time next year.

Graczyk downplays the delays.

"Two years from now, no one is going to remember Microsoft TV shipped in the first quarter instead of the fourth quarter," he says.

Those delays open possibilities for "thin client" systems such as Liberate TV's, that, unlike Windows CE, don't require a lot from the set-top.

"Do I see this as an opportunity for every MSO Microsoft has invested in? Absolutely," says David Limp, Liberate's VP-marketing "I think it's safe to assume a Liberate employee is knocking on doors."

On the other hand, such delays should not be unexpected, says Arthur Orduna, Canal U.S. Technologies VP-marketing, pointing to the complexity of what needs to be accomplished and Microsoft's checkered past working with TV platforms.

"The stumble, as far as we can understand, is all the layers on top of the embedded operating system that emulate the middleware or emulate the different functions to the set-top box," he says. "That's a difficult job. It's no surprise they weren't able to get to market on their original date."