'Media Center'
Puts Microsoft
Ahead of Rivals
By ROBERT A. GUTH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 5, 2006; Page A13
Microsoft, the technology industry's perennial late-to-the-game player, finally finds itself with a lead in home-entertainment software. It's up to a high-energy engineer named Joe Belfiore to keep it that way.
Mr. Belfiore is the 37-year-old vice president in charge of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Center, a remote-controlled software menu for managing music, movies and other digital entertainment on personal computers and, increasingly, TV screens.
[Joe Belfiore]
For four years, Mr. Belfiore and his team pumped out a new version of the software every year, refining it each time and gradually expanding its reach. So far, the product has mainly been a slow-selling sideline to Microsoft's main Windows business -- what another Microsoft manager calls "a shiny new toy," rather than core business for the company.
That is changing. A year ago, Microsoft relaxed Media Center specifications that included a requirement for a TV tuner, thereby allowing PC makers to roll out inexpensive versions and boost sales. Thanks to those changes, says Bruce Greenwood, a director at Hewlett-Packard Co.'s PC group, "the mix of PCs available and sold out there with Media Center increased dramatically in 2005." Sales since the product's birth have hit 6.5 million copies, most of which were sold in the past six months. "The momentum is definitely increasing," says Joe Wilcox, an analyst at JupiterResearch.
A further boost will come next year when Microsoft integrates Media Center with the next version of Windows, called Vista. The change means most new consumer PCs sold from the latter part of next year will be equipped with Media Center software, getting it to millions more consumers. The change makes Media Center and Mr. Belfiore, who was recently elevated to vice president, more central to its consumer entertainment strategy. It is also good business: Microsoft charges PC makers more money for Windows with Media Center than standard Windows.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates demonstrated the Vista-Media Center combination last night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He also announced a "mini" Media Center PC made by Averatec Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and a partnership with DirecTV Inc. that for the first time lets consumers view DirecTV satellite programming on their PCs.
The Vista-Media Center plan could help bolster Microsoft's defenses against a possible challenge from a competitor with big momentum -- Apple Computer Inc. In October Apple announced Front Row, a program for its iMac G5 computers that, like Media Center, helps organize and find digital content with a remote control. Apple isn't commenting on its plans but is widely expected to try to take Front Row to more of its machines, and possibly to TV sets as well.
The Apple threat seems menacing, in part because of recent history: Its iPod was a late entry in an established field of digital music players but soon stole the lion's share of the market. At Microsoft, Front Row is already causing ripples: Mr. Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.)
At stake is more than just another piece of software for home computers. Both companies, and others, are trying to build the foundational technology for all home digital entertainment.
Though the overwhelming majority of Media Center users view content on a PC screen, better networking technology and add-on accessories are expected, in time, to make it easier to point a remote at a TV and call up content stored on a computer in another room. Chip giant Intel Corp. is trying to encourage that trend, making the software a standard feature of a new line of media-oriented devices that will carry the brand Viiv.
Media Center is also a test for Microsoft's determination to release products more quickly and test them in the market, a contrast to the five-year effort to release Vista. "You can do a better job by shipping often and learning from the marketplace," Mr. Belfiore says. "It becomes much easier to figure out what you need to do."
Mr. Belfiore built Media Center in that mold, releasing annual updates based on feedback from customers, PC makers and reviewers. At the same time he maneuvered to limit ties to other products and development efforts, which can slow or kill fledgling products at large companies like Microsoft.
[Best]
By the time Mr. Belfiore joined the Media Center team in 2001, Microsoft had attempted many times to make home computing significantly easier. The mission was best symbolized by failed home PC software featuring a talking character named "Bob."
Media Center had its share of early problems. The initial version of Media Center -- which called for PCs to include a TV tuner -- was too expensive for typical home users. Television and video quality was also low and reviewers called the software unreliable.
But Mr. Belfiore pressed on, turning his home into a lab for testing new versions by filling his living room, basement and a spare bedroom with screens, projectors, server computers and satellite dishes. His wife and, later on, his infant son, became test subjects.
Through emails, Mr. Belfiore spread his home lab experience to his team, becoming a major advocate for the consumers he hoped would buy the Media Center PCs. He also exhorted others on his team to live with the software, test it and tell him of their experiences. "DO NOT BE SHY...with your opinions and experiences," he wrote in one email in July 2003.
The result is a piece of software that runs on Windows XP PCs but hides the multitude of icons and windows that usually populate a PC. A user sees just a simple menu with choice like "My Music" that can be opened with a click of the remote control. Mr. Belfiore's team also lined up VH-1, CinemaNow and others to provide content such as music and movies through the Media Center software.
As the Media Center's sales have inched up, so has Mr. Belfiore's clout, allowing his group certain independence from other initiatives at Microsoft that though well meaning, threaten to hamper the product. The prime example came in the summer of 2004 when Microsoft found that its under-development Windows Vista was so flawed it had to start over. The wrenching change forced many teams -- such as the engineers building software for flat-panel Tablet PCs -- to trash years of work. But Mr. Belfiore earlier had resisted close technical ties between Media Center and the Vista project, which enabled his project to continue virtually uninterrupted.
Mr. Belfiore did, however, tap projects he felt could boost the Media Center effort and several years ago started working with Microsoft's Xbox videogame group on ways to better tie the Media Center to televisions. The first result of the work, called Media Center Extender, sold slowly; consumers found it difficult to set up, and wireless networking made images herky-jerky. But the initiative laid the groundwork for links with Xbox 360, Microsoft's new videogame machine that shipped in November with extender technology built in.
Mr. Belfiore learned of Apple's Front Row effort while sitting in a meeting as a colleague read news of an Apple event from his cellphone screen. Soon he learned -- as did Mr. Gates -- that Apple Chairman Steve Jobs showed the audience at the event a slide comparing his six-button remote to Media Center's remote. Known for his optimism, Mr. Belfiore wrote to his team that he saw Apple's entry as a "validation" that Microsoft was on the right track with the Media Center.
It remains to be seen how many consumers with the Media Center software on their PCs will actually use it and few homes have networks that are fast enough to effectively link Media Center PCs with TVs and other gadgets. But Mr. Belfiore remains optimistic. With new competition from Apple, "the next year will tell us a lot," he says. "This will be the start of an exciting new period for us." |
