Quote:
Originally Posted by
MikeSM 
...So stop wiating of MSFT to deliver you a solution, and join the rest of us who have been enjoying very capable HTPC's and networked PVR's for years instead of waiting on MSFT for solutions. They aren't working on them for you - this announcement proves that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ChrisMorley
BS. I know plenty of people personally in MS's eHome group that work every day to deliver a better media center experience. They'd strongly disagree with you.
Yeah, but Chris, you're on the other side of the issue from most of us. You're a VAR, an OEM, a business person. Microsoft knows how to deal with business people, their kind of people. They set up a little meet and greet, set out some coffee (latte, not drip) and pastries (the good kind, not talking donuts here), stimulate some lite banter until it's time to go to the meeting room, then have have some really smart sounding people give presentations for a couple of hours, take a break, more lite banter, some introductions, maybe lunch, handout some brochures, maybe a few more specialized sessions latter in the day, and finally some gratuitous glad-handing so everyone goes home feeling special and that they accomplished something... something other then gaining a few pounds.
But, if one of us, an individual customer, an end user, a consumer. a little person, showed up in Redmond, the only thing Microsoft could think of doing would be calling security. The fact is that's the way big companies roll. So all these people in Redmond working hard... I won't dispute that, they are... but who are they working for? The channel? OEM's? VAR's? Or their customers?
Not being able to see a tree for the forest. This has always been a problem with big institutions. There is, however, an example of a company that is significantly better at, if not listening to it's customers, then at least glad-handing them very well: Apple.
I don't think Microsoft should be more like Apple. But I do think that if they insist upon using IBM as a role model, then they should follow IBM's lead and get the hell out of the consumer space. They are not good at it, and with Ballmer at the helm I don't see it getting any better. Ballmer idolizes the IBM white shirt/black tie/above-the-crowd ethos. As a customer, that really doesn't leave a lot for me to look forward to.
At the risk of sounding tired, because it's been said so many times before, Microsoft really, REALLY, needs to split up. As long as someone in eHome group, hard working or not, knows that if things don't work out, if the new product bombs, or if it just never ships, as long as they know they can just go back to the Office group or the Server group or where ever they started, there is no incentive to excel, just a need to survive.
EDIT----------------------------------
As long as Microsoft continues listens to VAR's and OEM's, all they will ever hear is what VAR's and OEM's need to survive. Maybe, from their perspective, Microsoft should go back to the way it was before MCE2005, when buying "Media Center" meant buying a "Media Center PC." Maybe, from their perspective, Microsoft should hold back certain functionality for the channel only, to give people an
incentive to buy 'professionally' built hardware. Well, that kinda thinking after, what, six years?, has gotten Media Center no where with the public at large. Just how many people actually buy systems? Please, tell us all; What sort of Media Center volume does Velocity or S1 or Maingear et al, do? Are we talking tens of thousands, thousands... hundreds? Just how many cablecard systems have been sold? What's the return rate on cablecard systems? In a world of 7 billion people, in a country of 300 million where 70 million PC's where sold last year alone, how many were specifically Media Centers, what percentage of the total was that, and why should anyone care except those directly involved?
The greatest expansion in Media Center came about as the result of the general release of MCE2005. But instead of expanding upon that, they seem to want to go backwards. Most of us here are individual consumers; tinkerers as someone else put it. We roll our own. We have no frakking need for VAR's or OEM's. We may buy a case from those guys, but never a system. Just the way it is. A few hundred here and there may feel different, but look how many people are here, and look how many are at the green button: Hundreds of thousands registered, probably several times that lurking.
Well, I am not for going backwards, it ain't gonna happen. If I have to,
have to, go back to buying pre-built systems, I'm gonna go to where I get the best value for my money and deal with a company that at least gives lip service to their customers want's and needs... I'll buy an Apple.
