After failing to gain traction in the US, beyond AT&T (U-verse), or meaningful integration with other business components, Microsoft has decided to simply jettison their Mediaroom IPTV unit:
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has reached an agreement with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) to acquire its TV solution Mediaroom business. This will make Ericsson the leading provider of IPTV and multi-screen solutions with a market share of over 25%. Closing expected during the second half of 2013. Mediaroom is situated in Mountain View, California and employs more than 400 people worldwide.
At this point in the game, unloading Mediaroom is the right move for Microsoft…. as the opportunity to merge their IPTV, Media Center, and Xbox platforms came and went years ago. And Microsoft’s current content distribution focus is clearly the Xbox.
It was very innovative for its time, but was expensive and didn’t scale well. Even at AT&T which was the only US cable/telco to deploy it, other vendors like Cisco and Motorola made inroads. It had some success in international markets (read: Europe), which will be where Ericsson probably has their interest.
For most of us the only part of this story that affects us at all is that its more news that Microsoft is giving up on the non-XBox TV strategy they pursued for so long. So if you didn’t believe Windows Media Center was dead yet, well it is. Really, really dead.
Yes you can continue to use Windows 7 WMC for some time to come, but in the long run (like 5-10 years from now, or when your PC fails and the new one has tech that Windows 7 doesn’t support so it won’t boot) you’ll need to move to something else.
That’s a long horizon though. As much as I poo poo all the cord-cutting talk since it ignores the reality of the current losses (small single digit percentages at best), if you look out 5-10 years I can imagine things being quite different.
Hey Dave,
You really need to cover this Aereo thing a little bit. I’m seriously in need of a place to bitch about this…
Depends what your position is… ;)
I just think its interesting from a legal point of view I guess. Plus all the Strum und Drang from the broadcasters over it is hilarious. They have what maybe a few hundred users in NYC right now? Fox is going to break all their sports contracts and leave their stations on ice flows over that? And the whole Aereo Killer thing, I’d love to know the backstory on that–was he paid to lose the case?
Then you start thinking logistics like how the cable companies could actually use this technology to stop paying retransmission fees? Man it would be hard to do that… pick a small cable operator someplace that is localized enough, funnel them money to set it up and fight a legal challenge, pick something like CBS that doesn’t have a package of channels with a lot of pull (e.g. don’t pick ABC which would pull ESPN off the air, pick CBS that would pull the CW), and go at it. Then wait a few years for the courts to rule. You’d have to evolve the approach, probably with legal challenges at each step, in order to deploy it nationally. Course I’m sure Dish is salivating at the idea but how the hell would they do something nationally?
Anyway, good stuff.
> (e.g. don’t pick ABC which would pull ESPN off the air, pick CBS that would pull the CW),
How could they / why would they pull ESPN off the air? It’s not broadcast ‘over the air’.
@Jeff, some ESPN content is shown on ABC.