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In a flurry of deals surrounding the announcement of its latest version of the Windows Media Player, Microsoft has made it clear that its attempt to embed the Windows operating system in the digital TV market will now focus on video encoding standards rather than interactive TV middleware.
In so doing, the software giant has pitched itself into a head- to-head battle with the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) - the standards-setting body responsible for the dominant broadcast digital coding standards contained within MPEG-2.
Microsoft would probably take issue with the first part of the above analysis. But one look at the press release the Microsoft TV division put in its press-pack at the IBC exhibition says it all. This leads with the European launch of the Windows Media 9 (WM9) series (a product from a separate, if not rival, Microsoft division) and goes on to highlight supporting agreements for WM9 with the likes of Tandberg, NTL and Pace. Mention of Microsoft TV's middleware products (none of them new, incidentally) are relegated to second place.
Coming on top of the tragic and untimely death of Microsoft TV's European marketing director, Mark Le Goy, and Jim Beveridge's move to a policy and standards-setting brief for Microsoft, it's difficult to believe that a separate interactive TV middleware division can survive for very much longer within the software giant (at least one focussed on a high-end solution of the Microsoft Advanced TV type).
But Microsoft refuses to link Microsoft TV's problems with WM9's energetic forays into the broadcasting space. Patrick Griffis, director of worldwide media standards for Microsoft's new media platforms, conceded that the Microsoft TV venture "hadn't been as successful as we had hoped," but, he asked, "is this our strategy to recoup for the frustrations with the middleware set-top box approach? The answer to that is no."
Instead, he argues, WM9's TV-leaning attributes (shared by the new media-centric version of Windows XP, which turns Windows PCs into PVRs) are simply the result of a recognition by Microsoft that "more...