Is Microsoft still licensing PMC software? in microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter.portable
Microsoft is no longer licensing the PMC software. Here is an
announcement that was sent out last year to our PMC partners:In early 2006, Microsoft released the second version of Windows Mobile
for Portable Media Centers to our partners. The second version of the
Portable Media Center software enhanced the end user experience and
enabled partners to build smaller, less expensive and more competitive
devices.As part of the ongoing review of our product investments, we have
decided to take what we have learned from our investments in Portable
Media Center and focus our product and marketing resources on building
media experiences on connected Windows Mobile powered devices.With the re-investment of resources in media experiences on connected
Windows Mobile powered devices, Portable Media Center 2.0 is the last
version of our Portable Media Center software under the Windows Mobile
brand. We do not plan any future Portable Media Center software upgrades
or marketing activities.Thank you for all your support- Microsoft is proud of its work, the work
of its partners and the devices and services delivered as a result of
those relationships. We will continue to work with existing Portable
Media Centers licensees to ensure that devices they are developing come
to market.
This isn’t a surprise, but it still makes me a bit sad. I helped out a little bit on PMC (and its successor that never saw the light of day) at the end of my Microsoft career and it was kind of a sad story. It was basically one guy on the Windows CE team (I can’t remember his name right now and google isn’t helping) who made the PMC happen, but originally it was a lot more interesting and capable device. Then the marketers and biz-dev guys stepped in and decided to make it a “better-together” device by tying it to the Media Center PCs. The result? A brand new technology gets shackled to an under performing one, guaranteeing its failure.
[via engadget]