Microsoft at CES 2005
p2pnet.net News:- “Microsoft Corp. spent this week displaying technology to improve how people watch TV, access movies, listen to music, play video games, view photos, navigate their cars, use their watches and wake up in the morning.”
There’s no Microsoft infant-feeder. Yet. But the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Todd Bishop goes on to quote MS Main Man Bill Gates as telling Consumer Electronics Show 2005 attendees, “We’re probably developing software for a wider range of hardware than any company.”
Well, you have to if you want to make sure you’re in control. Of everything.
“People at Microsoft say the continuing expansion into consumer electronics results in part from a desire to apply their technological expertise to digital media, communications and other situations people encounter in their everyday lives,” the story says, continuing that the centerpiece of Microsoft’s bid for the living room is the Windows Media Center PC.
“The PC is already part of the home ecosystem. … There’s a natural migration for the personal computer to become part of the emerging home-media ecosystem,” Bishop has Pat Griffis, Microsoft’s director of worldwide media standards, saying.
But, says Bishop, “the company’s dominance of personal computer software also makes some in the consumer electronics industry wary of giving it even more power. For example, industry analysts say cable providers are unlikely to switch entirely to Microsoft’s television software, preferring to maintain both Microsoft and Gemstar-TV Guide International as strong competitors in that market.”
As Microsoft expands from the PC into home electronics, the company’s legacy also comes with it – for better or worse, says the report, adding:
“At one point, Philips Semiconductors President and Chief Executive Frans van Houten called on the industry to come up with ways to make devices from many different manufacturers work more seamlessly together.
” ‘We have that – it’s called Windows,’ said Microsoft’s Griffis. Van Houten was quick to respond. No one, he said, wants to be sitting on their couch enjoying a show only to suddenly find themselves watching ‘that blue screen‘.”
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See:-
in control – Consumer Electronics Show: Microsoft shows initiative, January 8, 2005
blue screen – Bill Gates vs The BSoD, p2pnet, January 6, 2005
