New Microsoft Device Links Televisions, PCs
Still looking for a comfy seat in the living room of the future, Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a device that shuttles video and music between a computer and the family television.
The $200 device, dubbed MSN TV 2, is the software giant’s latest foray into the battle for control over how digital movies, music and games move around the house.
Although a dominant force in personal computers -- its operating system runs nine in 10 of the world’s PCs -- Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is a bit player in the $100-billion global consumer electronics market. And analysts don’t expect MSN TV 2 to do much to change that.
“They’re not going to take over the market tomorrow with this,” said Ben Mendelsen, president of the Interactive Television Alliance, an industry group in Santa Monica. “But they don’t need to. They just need to grow and be prepared for a future where entertainment is distributed digitally. This is a piece of their foundation in the living room.”
MSN TV 2 is designed to pipe pictures, video and music from a PC to a TV, either wirelessly or via a cable, and to let users send e-mail and surf the Internet from their TVs. People with Internet connections pay either $9.95 a month or $99 a year for the service; dial-up access costs $21.95 a month.
Other titans, including Sony Corp., Intel Corp., Dell Inc., Comcast Corp. and News Corp., have their own blueprints for the digital home.
Building it has proved problematic. Previous efforts to marry the Internet with TVs have failed. Most people are still put off by the complexity of putting together their own digital entertainment network. Plus, many of the devices on the market today either don’t work well with one another or duplicate functions.
Microsoft, for one, already sells a number of technologies for the living room.
Its Xbox video game console plays DVDs, has a hefty hard drive for storing digital content and connects to the Internet for online games. The firm also sells a version of its ubiquitous Windows operating system that makes it easier to download, store and play back digital entertainment. This fall, Microsoft is expected to release a Media Center Extender that links PCs to TVs. And in 1999, it paid about $500 million for WebTV, which brought the Internet to TV screens via a dial-up connection.
Those efforts have yet to pay off.
Xbox loses money, trailing in market share after Sony’s PlayStation 2. Sales of Windows Media Center haven’t taken off. WebTV, which was renamed MSN TV in 2001, stalled after signing up 1 million users.
Despite the setbacks, Microsoft still has its eye on the best seat in the house, according to analysts. “As the economics tilt toward consumer electronics, Microsoft wants to be a key technology provider,” said David Smith, an analyst with Gartner Inc., a technology consulting firm. “Microsoft has deep pockets and a willingness to be there for many, many years. They’re very patient.”
Microsoft, which has $61 billion on hand, said MSN TV 2 had features customers wanted.
“This is targeted at networked households that have broadband Internet and a lot of digital media on their PCs,” said Sam Klepper, general manager for Microsoft’s TV business in Mountain View, Calif. “It’s a way to free up that content on your PC and bring it to the TV to share with your friends and family.”
Some analysts agreed. “People are interested in being able to access their content from lots of different devices,” Smith said. “And this is definitely a step in that direction.”
