Sayonara Media Extenders: Microsoft's Multiple Blunders

I struggled mightily and eventually succeeded in getting reliable streaming working between my Windows Vista Ultimate-equipped Dell XPS M1330 and my Cisco/Linksys DMA2100 Media Center Extender. As such, my dismay at recently hearing of the end-of-life of it and its DMA2200 big brother (along with the apparent shut-down of other vendors’ comparable product lines) is hopefully understandable. Dismay, yes, but surprise? No. Recent retail ‘fire sales’ telegraphed suppliers’ long-term plans. As I’ve alluded in past writeups, the product category’s relevance has long been tenuous at best. And its demise exemplifies the tense relationship between large companies like Apple, Intel and Microsoft and their partners…a relationship that inevitably evolves to the smaller company’s detriment once the large company decides for whatever reason to move into the (former) partners’ territory.

As review, the MCE (Media Center Extender) is a variant of the digital media receiver, a ‘catch-all’ label encompassing any networked device which enables playback of content stored elsewhere on the LAN or WAN. MCEs replicate the Windows Media Center user interface, allowing for access elsewhere in the home to content stored on (and accessible by) a Media Center-cognizant computer. Part of the reason for MCEs’ downfall, I’d wager, had to do with their price tags, in both absolute and relative terms. Cisco/Linksys’ DMA2100, for example, had an MSRP at launch of $299.99. The DMA2200, which added an integrated DVD player, cost $50 more. The downturn in the economy has particularly harmed the fortunes of devices deemed ‘non-essential’ by consumers; as fond as I am of the MCE concept, I’ll grant that it’s by no means indispensable.

Continuing the pricing discussion, consider Microsoft’s alternative game console series. A MCE add-on for the original Xbox cost around $80; MCE functionality was built into the follow-on Xbox 360 from the get-go. Today, you can buy an entry-level Xbox 360 for $199.99 or less (a HDD isn’t essential for MCE capability, but by locally caching code, the HDD avoids a lengthy download-and-install delay every time you launch the Extender application). And I think you’ll agree with me that an Xbox 360 is a far more versatile and therefore compelling hardware platform than a single-function MCE, even if the latter is greatly discounted below its MSRP.

Quick-witted readers may already be thinking to themselves, "Hey, that’s not a fair comparison." After all, the fundamental premise of a console’s marketing plan, exemplifying the ‘razor and blades‘ business strategy also well-known to inkjet printer owners, is to if necessary sell the console below cost, making up the deficit later courtesy of abundant sales of high-margin game and other content. That’s true, but a perusal of an MCE’s insides suggests that their manufacturers were making more-than-adequate profits, too, assuming reasonable sales volumes. Thereby leading to my first question, one that I’ve repeatedly asked both Microsoft and MCE companies in the past without getting a straight answer (even an off-the-record one); is Microsoft the villain or victim here, or a little of both?

First-generation MCEs predated the ‘Media Center Extender for Xbox’ add-on by a notable amount of time. So what happened here; was Microsoft underwhelmed by its partners’ pricing, promotion and other program characteristics, which were hampering sales of Windows XP Media Center Edition, and did the company therefore decide to take matters more directly into its own hands? Or, hungry for additional sources of revenue and profits, did it steal the reins away from its partners, who had been doing a good job on their own (thereby attracting Microsoft’s attention)? Regardless of whether Microsoft stole or single-handedly sustained the MCE category, I’ll unhesitatingly fault it for a sub-par job both implementing and marketing Media Center capabilities.

Instead of offering Media Center as a standalone upgrade for all Windows XP users, the company instead created a custom operating system variant, which was largely available only pre-installed on new computers (although if you looked hard enough, you could find ’system builder’ disc sets for sale). This decision effectively shut out anyone who might want to augment an existing Windows XP installation with Media Center capabilities, save for ‘power user’ enthusiasts. Plus, non-technical friends and family members that I spoke with never grokked the Extender concept, assuming, that is, that they’d ever even heard of MCEs…all they seemed to ever get was that Media Center let you watch TV on your PC, and "who cares about that?"

Microsoft somewhat rectified its past sins with Windows Vista (along with upcoming Windows 7), by bundling Media Center within the operating system, where on a version-dependent basis it was either already active or awaiting the entry of a purchased upgrade registration key. But by that time, the company and its MCE partners had already lost several precious years of momentum, and anyway, we all know how well Windows Vista was ‘embraced’ by the marketplace. Ahem. Speaking of the XP-to-Vista transition, it marked another notable setback for MCEs. Microsoft had evolved the Extender protocols to the degree that only one XP MCE platform, conveniently its own Xbox 360, was also Vista Extender-compatible. Again, nobody’s ever given me a straight answer as to whether the standalone MCE manufacturers chose to not offer firmware upgrades for existing hardware (in the hopes of alternatively selling existing customers new hardware), or if first-generation MCEs had insufficient processing power, memory resources or some other limitation that precluded upgrades. But it was a bum deal for MCE early adopters.

Ironically, the recent news of the shutdown of Cisco/Linksys’ MCE product line was followed just this morning by a joint release from Microsoft and Netflix indicating that access to the latter’s Watch Instantly online service was now built directly into the Media Center user interface. This is largely an enhancement of convenience, not a notable step forward from a functional standpoint. You’ve long been able to view Watch Instantly content from a computer web browser, after all. But as I suspected upfront and confirmed via hands-on testing earlier today, you’re not able to run the Netflix MCE application through an Extender device (either standalone or Xbox 360-inclusive). I daresay this probably has at least a little something to do with Microsoft’s desire to maintain lucrative revenues from Xbox Live Gold memberships; a ‘Gold’ subscription, along with a Netflix account, is a necessary prerequisite for direct Netflix access on the game console. Thankfully, though, the combination of PlayOn and vmcPlayIt (or, for that matter, the standalone vmcNetFlix plug-in) provides an alternative means for Extender owners to get their Netflix fix.

A few months back, I read a rumor that Microsoft’s long-term partner Toshiba (case studies; HD DVD, Zune’s Toshiba Gigabeat hardware foundation, etc) was planning on building MCE functionality directly into its televisions. Doing so would address one other pragmatic set of related MCE complaints…how many set-top boxes (and associated remote controls) is a consumer expected to own, and does a display have sufficient inputs (either integrated or external in the form of yet another costly ‘box’, the video switcher) to encompass them all? It’d be analogous to the deals Yahoo! struck with numerous TV suppliers and announced at January’s CES. But given the recent MCE market retraction exemplified by Cisco/Linksys (yes, that means no more firmware updates) and its peers, I wonder if the Toshiba gossip will end up amounting to anything, or if Microsoft will be the sole MCE supplier in short order.